Encumbrance system encourages degenerate clothing behaviour

[Izicata]

4 pairs of shorts, 1 pair of pants, 2 survivor vests, 2 tank tops, 1 under armour, 1 trenchcoat, no encumbrance and apparently no issues reaching the pockets layered under other pockets.

I would suggest changing the system so you're only able to wear one of each item of clothing; or, wearing more than one kind of clothing doesn't give you the volume from the second item. So stacking one trenchcoat on top of another would give you the warmth and armour, but not the 24 volume because you can't reach the pockets.

Also I miss the button that reassigned all your clothing items to rarely used symbols. What happened to that?

[Rivet-the-Zombie]

The doubled clothing thing is the way it's always worked. It does seem rather odd, but it's sort of become a core part of outfitting yourself.

As for the weirdness of having pockets on clothing inside of other clothing, it's a limitation of how the volume system works. I could see making it take longer to get to the inner pockets, but the game has no way of doing so at the moment, and doesn't track which pocket stuff is stored in.

[Izicata]

The doubled clothing thing is the way it's always worked. It does seem rather odd, but it's sort of become a core part of outfitting yourself.

That's no reason not to remove it if it's become broken. And the encumbrance system is broken.

Camo tank tops are considered a different item than regular tank tops, so I guess you can wear four reinforced fitted tank tops for 16 free bashing/cut armour if you dye the clothing different colours. And for gods sake, I'm wearing three vests and four pairs of shorts. Somebody please stop me.

[KA101]

Or decide that yeah, it makes no frickin' sense, and RP yourself to...not overload clothing?

/is content with one pair of Army Pants, a belt rig, and a trenchcoat, generally

[Izicata]

Or decide that yeah, it makes no frickin' sense, and RP yourself to...not overload clothing?

Many players cannot help but approach games as optimization puzzles; see the excellent column 'Water Finds a Crack' by Soren Johnson, one of the Civilization developers. I am one of those players, and this optimization puzzle is broken. There is little to no benefit to having high-encumbrance, high-volume clothing items if you can just stack 10 no-encumbrance medium-volume items. This is especially bad for characters that melee a lot, as high torso encumbrance is crippling in melee. Not to mention that you can easily get high armour values for zero encumbrance simply by wearing tons and tons of clothing.

[Rivet-the-Zombie]

I don't see it as broken. The old encumbrance system used to penalize you for daring to wear socks with your shoes; I'm going to say that in the case of encumbrance, I'd rather see the game lean toward being permissive than being ridiculously restrictive.

And having on all that stuff does have its own drawbacks: item number limit, weight, and constant repairs being the biggest three that leap to mind at the moment.

But yeah, if you don't like it, nobody is forcing you to do it.

[Izicata]

Constant repairs are a non-issue considering how easy it is to get rags. They're actually a nice way to avoid tailoring skill rust. I've never actually hit the item limit, even with wearing 21 separate pieces of clothing, so I don't know how much of a drawback it is. I know that I hit the volume limit all the time. The weight limit is bizarre; I highly doubt a pair of cargo shorts weighs half a kilo, and I play mostly high-strength characters so it's not an issue anyway unless I'm trying to fish out zombie corpses from under a car.

[AnderHammer]

We probably have enough clothing and storage options in-game at this point that it could be changed so that more than one of each particular article of clothing can't be worn without that much of a change.

I admit to being mystified as to why you thought it was an issue worth raising, yet you don't take any steps to avoid it. This isn't a problem everyone chooses to make for themselves, after all.

[Izicata]

But yeah, if you don't like it, nobody is forcing you to do it.

I admit to being mystified as to why you thought it was an issue worth raising, yet you don't take any steps to avoid it. This isn't a problem everyone chooses to make for themselves, after all.

I admit to being mystified why you two don't seem to care about game balance. There are other kinds of gameplay beyond roleplaying, and roleplaying can make even a shitty game enjoyable. Claiming that you can fix a problem with the power of imagination is just admitting that the problem exists and you don't want to or can't actually fix it.

[Rivet-the-Zombie]

I'm not sure how 'game balance' even factors in here. This is a single player game, so it's not like you're going to get an advantage over another player by wearing a specific set of clothes or something.

This strikes me as a matter of, "I don't like this, so nobody else should be able to do it either," more than anything.

Nobody and nothing is forcing you to wear layered tank tops any more than you are being forced to wear powered armor, use a specific weapon, or play the game in the first place. It's your choice to use that gear, so don't use it if you don't like it.

[Izicata]

I'm not sure how 'game balance' even factors in here. This is a single player game

Whelp, game balance isn't a factor in single player games anymore. Might as well just start everyone off with a free, 0 encumbrance 60 volume custom backpack, and if you don't like it just drop it on the evac shelter floor and pretend it doesn't exist.

The difference between this hyperbolic example and the current state of the clothing encumbrance system is a matter of degree, not substance.

Seriously. Game balance exists in single player games, and the clothing encumbrance system is currently not balanced. It encourages a single, dominant strategy, which is bad for meaningful character customization and player enjoyment.

[i2amroy]

I think a pretty simple thing that would at least balance this out a bit would be making zero encumbrance fitted items cost .5 for layering instead of 0. That would mean there was still a penalty for wearing tons of tank tops, but they still have some advantage to being fitted.

[Zireael07]

Just make wearing more than one of same item impossible and problem solved. Zero enc should remain zero enc.

[i2amroy]

Just make wearing more than one of same item impossible and problem solved. Zero enc should remain zero enc.

Have you ever worn two t-shirts at once? I certainly have.

A quick check of converting it from 0 layering to .5 shows that both the of the more extreme things (upper body and legs) go up to 2 encumbrance each, with the leg encumbrance rising fairly swiftly at that point (with every two fitted zero enc items giving you +1 enc). A further small change of raising the layering reducement on the torso from .5 to .75 raises it's enc up to 3 from two, and it grows almost as fast as the leg encumbrance does.

As for the weight limits, feel free to put up PR's fixing them. Most of the data I found through looking on-line instead of weighing actual copies (not having a gram-sensitive scale available) so if you have more accurate numbers feel free to put them up.

[kevingranade]

As a hotfix, I like i2amroy's solution, though I'm thinking a little less aggressive, maybe .25 or .34 per instead of .5?
For a somewhat more complete and consistent solution, that could easily generalize to just increasing the range of encumbrance values, *10 the values the clothes have and /10 the calculated penalty. Not sure where to plug "fitted" into that.
With the variety of clothing types we have, unique item limits turn into a scavenger hunt for functionally identical articles of clothing that have a different labels, so a big no on that.
The better solution would be to come up with an encumbrance system that actually makes sense for our purposes instead of continuing to use one designed to handle "armor".
Disabling stacking for fitted 0-enc items was nothing more than a band-aid for patently absurd negative encumbrance scenario, it was never intended to be a permanent solution.
Will be reading that article you posted Izicata

[Rivet-the-Zombie]

By the way, kudos for spelling 'encumbrance' correctly. Looking at the misspelled version in-game really bugged the crap out of me for quite some time.

True 'balance' only applies when there is more than one player in a game. Any application of 'balance' in a single player game is simply a measure of what's fun and what isn't fun for the player - and the vast majority of players are enjoying it as is. This is why it's good that we have lead developers in charge of what gets merged and what doesn't: two or more heads are usually better than one, and it prevents one person's opinion from automatically changing something that everyone else is enjoying. Cataclysm isn't just for you alone, it's for all the players.

What you're describing is effort versus benefit in a single player environment; it's not a matter of degree versus substance, you're describing a tactic that you can choose to use or not use versus hyperbole. You can spend more time and effort wearing a pile of clothing; it doesn't prevent you from choosing other options, your own decision making process is what's doing that

That being said, I can agree with limiting the player to wearing one copy per item for gameplay reasons, that's not totally unreasonable - though it's still just as game-y and unrealistic (oh no, realism in a game about zombies and cyborg mutants!) as the two per item limit we currently have. Modified encumbrance values sounds better overall, so long as it doesn't get extreme and start screwing you over when you wear an undershirt beneath your tshirt or socks with your shoes and such.

Also, the weights of the clothing generally seem to be pretty good. 1-2 pounds per pair of pants is actually spot-on.

[kevingranade]

People are getting hung up on the term balance, I'm not sure there's a good term for what this situation is, "the optimal way to address this situation (in this case high armor/warmth/storage with no encumbrance) is to do something patently absurd" I'm not sure what to call that either, but it is in fact broken. You shouldn't be penalized for doing smart things, you shouldn't be rewarded for doing dumb things, it's a subset of verisimilitude.

[Izicata]

I think we could call it a degenerate system, as opposed to a good system.

For example, Messenger Bags, Backpacks, and Rucksacks are balanced against each other; 0 Enc 20 Vol vs 1 Enc 40 Vol vs 2 Enc 80 Vol. None of them provide much extra protection, they all go on the torso slot only, and none of them can be fitted so you'll always have to deal with layering costs. There is no optimal, strongest solution because they all have different costs and benefits. That's a good clothing system.

With regards to legwear, the optimal set of clothing will (almost) always involve wearing four pairs of fitted shorts. No matter what you want out of your legwear, whether you want lots of volume, high or low warmth, or minimal encumbrance, you should always wear four pairs of fitted shorts. They don't add encumbrance, so you can wear them over anything. They don't provide warmth so you can even wear them in 40°C weather. The only mechanical reason to not wear four pairs of fitted shorts is if you're wearing power armour. That's the only choice you have; four shorts or power armour, and it only exists because power armour specifically disallows wearing anything else. That's a degenerate clothing system.

[Rivet-the-Zombie]

I think the issue here is that you're confusing your own personal idea of optimal gameplay with an actual binary decision that can be left up to the individual; and repeatedly throwing 'degenerate' into the mix is just using loaded language.

Sure, the system can use some more work, but even in its current state it doesn't mean that your tactic is the only valid strategy that a player can use. I personally don't use either, power armor or layers upon layers of shorts - because there are already lots of other choices that are just as good and, in many cases, even better.

[Izicata]

there are already lots of other choices that are just as good and, in many cases, even better.

That's the issue with shorts. If you're not wearing power armour, wearing four pairs of shorts is optimal, no matter what else you are wearing on your legs. It's 24 free volume, no downside. You can be wearing army pants and long underwear, or plate mail, or a wolf suit, and you'll still be able to get 24 volume for 0 additional encumbrance by putting on four pairs of shorts. The clothing system inexorably degenerates towards the point of maximum shorts, much like the universe inexorably degenerates towards the point of maximum entropy. This isn't a "personal idea", this is what the clothing system in it's current state does.

[i2amroy]

If, however, we enable a small amount of layering with fitted zero enc items, wearing 4 pairs of shorts is no longer optimal because they add layering which causes encumbrance.

As a hotfix, I like i2amroy's solution, though I'm thinking a little less aggressive, maybe .25 or .34 per instead of .5

The main reason that I chose .5 is because layering already has to get to 2 complete layers before any encumbrance is added (and layering is further reduced on the torso). With .5 you start to accumulate layering encumbrance at 4 items (which is about the point I figure this starts to become ridiculous with pairs of shorts). Factoring for torso encumbrance the amount you can stack before enc is 8 items (6 using .75 for torso instead of .5).

[Rivet-the-Zombie]

I second this idea, so long as we don't end up back where we were - being penalized for wearing socks with our shoes, or for wearing an undershirt beneath an overshirt.

[Nickboom1]

I personally think that the current encumbrance system is too harsh and just doesnt make sense. We should make it so you can wear one item of a certain category with out any penalty (but this takes in to account the fact that if there is a lower encumbrance item it will ignore the lower item not the higher.) So a few categories would be inner layer (tank tops etc) outer layer (trenchcoats, sweaters, etc) pants (pants) footwear (not including socks) but not gloves because most gloves actually do encumber hands with a single pair.

[i2amroy]

I don't really know what you think, but even if you are only wearing a single item you can still be encumbered. A case in point might be a military rucksack, which even if I'm not wearing anything else on my torso would still be rather encumbering.

[Izicata]

Okay, the shorts problem is fixed. For no leg encumbrance, I can wear up to three items with 0 base encumbrance, or one item with 1 base encumbrance and one item with 0 base encumbrance. Shorts are no longer always optimal. For the torso, I can still wear two survivor vests and a trenchcoat and get 0 encumbrance, but if I wear something like a backpack on top my encumbrance shoots up to 2. The encumbrance system is looking a lot more reasonable.

[kevingranade]

I'm going to call this closed since the specific issue is addressed, if you have another specific issue where encumbrance is just totally dumb, feel free to speak up.