More realistic carry weight and item weights?

[odizzido]

So I was replying to another thread and noticed the weights of items in TLD are just wacky. An average knife seems to be around 300g compared to 500g for the one in this game and I found weights on four hatchets ranging from 566g-930g with an average of 700g. The one in the game is more than double that at 1500.

Why are the weights in this game so off? Why not have more realistic weights but then just cut our max carry weight? I personally tried carrying weights up a mountain and it's really frickin hard. Our character has like olympic endurance and strength with the speed at which we can haul 50kg up a hill. But are they really? With all the inflated weights I bet our actual carry weight is less than half of what it says. I bet if we cut down weights to real levels and then cut our carry capacity to match it would be a lot more reasonable and our character would be a lot more human.

So why do we have all these inflated numbers? Why is real rabbit meat 446% of the calories of the rabbit meat in this game? We wouldn't need to be a body building sprinting champion if the weights in this game were closer to reality.

[TiffTastic]

Yeah, I’ve had the same thoughts....especially with clothes. I’ve never weighed my socks but I’m pretty sure that they don’t weigh a quarter kilo...and pants don’t weigh 1.5 kilos either. Not sure bout animal skin clothes, I’d imagine those may weigh a bunch more. Also, toolboxes full of tools I bet weigh more than a 6 pack of socks.....

[Serenity]

19 hours ago, odizzido said:

Why is real rabbit meat 446% of the calories of the rabbit meat in this game? 

That's a somewhat different issue than straight up weight and more about balancing the game and the food system. Yes, in real life rabbits have quite a lot of meat on them and the meat has more calories. Eating a whole rabbit as a single person isn't actually that easy (though I guess a wild one is probably smaller than a raised one).

But rabbits are also very, very easy to get. And if they make rabbits too good there is less incentive to hunt deer

[odizzido]

2 hours ago, Serenity said:

That's a somewhat different issue than straight up weight and more about balancing the game and the food system. Yes, in real life rabbits have quite a lot of meat on them and the meat has more calories. Eating a whole rabbit as a single person isn't actually that easy (though I guess a wild one is probably smaller than a raised one).

But rabbits are also very, very easy to get. And if they make rabbits too good there is less incentive to hunt deer

Okay. But we can do the same with any of them. Why is deer/bear/moose meat less than half the calories of actual meat? If you cut the weight in half you would at least be close.

@TiffTastic haha I didn't know about the lead socks. A six pack of socks is the same weight as like an axe. Like an actual axe, not a little hatchet.

[oplli]

13 hours ago, TiffTastic said:

 Not sure bout animal skin clothes, I’d imagine those may weigh a bunch more. Also, toolboxes full of tools I bet weigh more than a 6 pack of socks.....

i just ordered three rabitskin furrs last week to make some mittens. and what i noticed is that is is SOOO light i mean i can make 2 mitts with the equivalent of like 1 pound or 0.5 kg. the tld mitts weight 4.4 pounds and 2 kg it is insane... of course in the long dark the furrs are not cured once you harvest em so it is normal that it weigts a little bit more but once we cured them it should weight less.

 

but another thing is that our character is taking often 40 to 60 or 80 pounds \ 20 to 30 or 40 kg (approx) with him wich dosent make sense at all. like every items in the game xD i guess it is some kind of balancing  

[TiffTastic]

I make the pieces fit in my mind by thinking 1) bet they didn’t expect to have rabid fans nitpick them this much😁 and 2) all the wildlife with pointy teeth got switched to terminator mode and apparently every other resident of great bear island got switched to lay down, give up, and die mode, so the issue of weight, well, they had a lot on their mind......

[ManicManiac]

I think that the balance we have in the game is really well done.  Firstly, I don't think the weight of items need to mirror reality... it's a game and I don't think it needs to be hyper-realistic.  Personally, I like the current setup.  The player really does need to manage inventory, and can't always carry around everything we might want to all at once (at least not without movement penalty).  I think this creates a need to really consider our priorities.

For me, my desire to travel light has really helped teach me the difference between necessity and "nice to have" in this game.

The short version is:
I appreciate the current item weights in relation to the character carrying capacity (I think it's well balanced).
I think the current setup creates a valuable aspect of gameplay (in that we actually have to carefully manage what's in our pack).
I also don't think items in a video game need to exactly mirror their real-world counterparts.

Edited October 4, 2020 by ManicManiac