Talk:Inventory Suggestions

Giving Objects to Other Players

• The suggestion is for a new action to give another player an item out of your inventory.

...but only items that you have EXTRA of. And in case of ammo, you can only give away 10% (or 20%) of your inventory per day, and you cannot give away any if you're down to (to be determined) number of shotgun shells / pistol clips.

I personally think these ideas are not very good, why so many limits? I think you should be able to give anything you want to whoever you want at the cost of 1AP, simple as that -- GIR 22:12, 16 Sep 2005 (BST)

The reason is so you can't create umpteenth characters with starting items, but only to give all their items to your main guy, while they run around naked in the city and become zombie fodder! (i.e. inventory Zerg'ing!) Kschang 07:05, 19 Sep 2005 (BST)

What if the 'give' button only unlocked randomly? Each action (or some actions) would have a certain chance of unlocking it? 'give' stays unlocked until you use it, and then goes away - you couldn't hoard 'give' actions. RodgerYoung

Too complicated and too random, IMHO. Kschang 05:43, 25 Sep 2005 (BST)

Alternatively, only allow a 'give' down in levels to represent the experienced survivors helping out the n00bs.

Not a bad idea. The newbies need help seriously in getting XPs. Kschang 05:43, 25 Sep 2005 (BST)

Couldn't you just have the give function work for everybody who's already gained a level or two? Would that be enough to discourage zerging? --Tocky 15:59, 21 Sep 2005 (BST)

I don't think it would - searching is a big part of the game. If you wanted a dedicated search character, it wouldn't be too bad to level it up a few times first. If you required a giver to be level 3, people would just give searchers bargain hunting and free running. I think giving needs to be limited to every couple of days, so it's not effective to have dedicated searchers. I also realized that 'give' rules need to worry about give bombing - in PVP, you could fill up someone's inventory with newspaper and wirecutters. --RodgerYoung 14:58, 22 Sep 2005 (BST)

Or again, have limits in giving away items. But then it involves tracking types of items. Durable goods only need one, so any extra can be traded, but consumables like ammo need limits per day. Kschang 05:43, 25 Sep 2005 (BST)

• The main problem with givable items seems to be that there would quickly be a glut of durable items, since there is no way for items to leave the game unless someone deliberately drops them, which nobody would if they knew they could trade them for something they need. So how about introducing breakage concurrently with giveability? Any item that isn't expendable (medkits, syringes, ammo) has a random chance of breaking anytime it's used. For flak jackets it would be a random chance of breaking anytime the character is attacked. Problem solved. Also, to restore balance to the game, maybe have some or all carried items get lost when a human gets killed.

--F1r3br4nd 18:17, 22 Sep 2005 (BST)

It occurs to me that in such a circumnstance, non-consumable objects will be inherantly worthless - because there's an unlimited supply, but only a limited demand, everyone will eventually have one (if market forces are to be believed). When that happens, non-consumable objects will actually be literally worthless after the first one - you only need one, after all. Yes, in the circumnstance of guns, this is not entirely accurate, but it's only a delayed problem - instead of only the first one having any worth, only the first eight (or so) will be of any worth.

If item transfer becomes a reality, what will likely happen is that given time, all trade will be focused around consumable objects, since there is an unlimited demand for these objects. My suspicion is that revivication syringes will be of greatest worth - while everyone can find them, not everyone can use them, thus players unable to use syringes will offload them to people desperate to have more of them, since they can use them. Ammo may have similar issues, since people who focus on Melee abilities are likely to trade them away to those who are desperate for more. First Aid Kits are likely to be traded at much lower volumes, since all players can find them, and all players are able to use them. If trading costs 1AP (and no reason why it wouldn't), then there's no real reason to trade First Aid Kits at all, seeing as the trader could use the kits themselves and get the extra XP for the same cost as giving it away to someone.

Just some thoughts. -- Odd Starter 04:03, 24 Sep 2005 (BST)

Yes, but if non-consumable objects break, then they too will be valuable because their supply will be limited. Actually, come to think of it, in addition to preventing item inflation caused by trade, having non-consumable objects be breakable may help game balance because only humans really use objects (other than flack jackets). - F1r3br4nd 01:31, 25 Sep 2005 (BST)

As it is right now, everybody WILL eventually have one of the durable items if they survive long enough and search long enough. With giving/trading, it'll just happen sooner. Kschang 05:43, 25 Sep 2005 (BST)

• Item inflation is the real problem with giving items. Giving as an incentive for multiplaying in a manner that's against the rules is really kind of a bogus problem. Why? Because people who would cheat in that way would already be cheating right now by creating specialist healer, builder, and reviver characters to follow around their fighter characters. Or making hordes of fighter characters and attacking in mobs. To an extent whatever anti-cheating mechanisms the game uses already catch these people and result in their accounts being terminated. To an extent I'd expect few people have so little to do with their lives that they would bother to multiplay a free online web game. To an extent, as I said, there already are cheaters that do fall through the cracks and they do ruin the game slightly for the rest of us, but not enought for us to stop playing. In summary, I don't any reason that tradeable items would tempt someone to cheat who wasn't already cheating. --??
• To Summarize: so far the best suggestion are 1) Restrict giving to a higher level (5?), maybe only allow giving to equal or lower levels, not to higher levels. 2) Requiring one to keep some base inventory like at least ONE of durable items, and only trade away at max 20% of one's ammo. 3) Restrict amount of trading in a day to X items (10? 15?) or X% of one's inventory. 4) Restrict amount of trading by having it use up large amounts of AP. Current guess is it'll likely be 1 AP per trade, so if a trade uses 2 AP it'll restrict amount of trading significantly. -- Kschang 05:45, 25 Sep 2005 (BST)
• I am not sure how the system implemented, but it might be possible to put something as "Emergency stations" for every building that is occupied by... let's say... at least five people.

General idea: People got together inside a building. Zombies pushing pretty hard and folks inside need to share resources ("I am dry! Can someone spare a clip?").

What is it? : The "Emergency Station" is basically a pile o'junk. People "donate" what they might not need into the pile for others to pick up. There might be an option for someone with specific skills or profession to pickup the donated item. )Example: I donate this first aid kit and only a person with FirstAid skill or who is medical-related job [Military-EMT or Civilian-Doctor] can get it).

Reason: Playing a pure support medic I've used all my first aid kits on people to heal them and cure the infection... and literally was left with nothing.... Not even a thanks from the person I used my last kit on. -- Silver 18:30, 29 Sep 2005 (EST)

Dr Caligari 03 October 05 (has someone already suggested this?) Perhaps zerging could be avoided if certain items could only be found/used/traded by characters of a certain level i.e. "better" equipment becoming more readily available at higher levels. Then low level characters would not be able to pass on any useful items to the primary character nor would they have any reason to and higher level characters would be able to swap amongst themselves. Of course for this to work there would have to be greater variation among the equipment found, for instance weapons could work like this:

Basic form of weapon-useable/found by all characters

Weapon+1 damage- useable/found by all characters level 2 or above (or some kind of level up or skill aquisition)

Weapon+2 damage- useable/found by all characters level 3 or above

etc.

Since those who try to create multiple characters to zerge tend only to level up one, primary character the items found by their lower level characters would be useless to them.

Commodity items such as first-aid kits and ammunition would have to be non-transferable other than a single use on another character (the way first aid kits are at the moment, you could reload ally's arms, perhaps, if you were holed up in a building surrounded by zombies and no-one else had any ammo) as it would be unfair to block lower-level characters from these necessities. If they were transferable then zerging could still take place with these items, which would cause problems.

• I don't know if this is possible to be done but maybe a certain value should be given to each item (perhaps only the truly usable items)and it would only be possible to trade it for another item of the same value, or an amount of items which sum would end up in the same value. Like a kind of money in the game. This should diminish the problems of zerging and would not contribute to item inflation. --Gralhos 01:01, 26 May 2007 (BST)

Inventory Sorting

Re: Inventory Sorting - can I second this suggestion? I could be wrong, but to me this looks like something that's reasonably simple to implement, but it would be incredibly useful. --Uborkapete 14:43, 25 Sep 2005 (BST)

Thirded - I think this may be fast-tracking its way to the Good Suggestions page. RodgerYoung 16:15, 25 Sep 2005 (BST)

The "drop" combo box also needs sorting at the same time, though this is fundamentally the same change (I'm sure that Kevan wouldn't overlook this). --Uborkapete 17:32, 25 Sep 2005 (BST)

I also agree, a sorted inventory is a happy inventory. --Zark the Damned 11:10, 27 Sep 2005 (BST)

While we're on the topic of happy inventories, it would be nice if when attacking with a pistol or shotgun, the preferred weapon used is that with the fewest rounds stored in it (so if you have a pistol(6) and a pistol(1), the pistol(1) is used first, no matter which order they appear in the inventory). Or does this already happen, and I've just been too ignorant to notice? --Uborkapete 17:44, 27 Sep 2005 (BST)

Another advantage of a sorted (or combined) inventory is that you only need one drop-down box for healing, no matter how many first-aid kits you have. That would clean up inventories right there... --RodgerYoung 15:53, 29 Sep 2005 (BST)

"No-drop" flags on new players' items

I followed this link from the Zerging page, in Everquest all character starting items are flagged as "no-drop" to prevent item concentration from created accounts, this would make it safe to allow giving items without having people use scripts and proxies to get rich quick

Also, Some kind of Level requirement or skill could be needed to trade, Maybe an item? Just a thought. —Senretsu 2006-02-24 13:40:29 (BST)