So, carrying capacity. I realize capacity would vary from character to character, but broadly speaking, I always felt Oblivion's capacity was too large. You could pracitcally lug around multiple complete sets of armour, as well as several weapons and other valuables. Personally I find it quite unrealistic. I'd like to see this reduced for Skyrim, so you can't carry much more than the armour you wear and the weapon at your side. This would make it harder to amass large collections of valuables and sell them for lots of gold, but is that such a bad thing? In my opinion anything which makes the player work harder for that shiny penny is a good thing. Gold should not be an easily attainable commodity.

Of course with such drastically reduced carrying capacity there should be ways of increasing it. Horses and other pack animals would be the best way, with carts also for a greater boost. NPC companions and spells could also contribute.

What do you think?

You could carry far too much
Pack animals, companions and magic all seem good to me, Carts too but mules and ponies can go places where carts would struggle

Pack animals should be the main way of carrying large amounts of loot. Multiple if necessary. It's more realistic that way. No way is someone coming out of a dungeon after fighting through it's monsters/evil npcs with 200-300 pounds of loot & hauling it home on their back without some magical bag that displaces the gear & weight into a pocket dimension.

Character carrying capacity should be limited by the container via a grid system or something similar as well. Size and shape is as much or more of a factor than weight in what you can carry.

As i said before, I do favour a weight and volume-limited inventory, reasonably mimicking what you'be able to carry in real life. Not only is it more realistic, a good thing, but i believe it to add tactical depth to the game, a great thing. One is forced to choose what and when to carry.

I'm expecting a barrage of criticism from anti-realism forum members. It's just hard to imagine this as a toggable feature - we have to draw the line somewhere - so if this doesn't make it, it won't signal the end of the world. Just a missed opportunity.

On one hand, it was silly carrying 2 sets of armor and 6 weapons and loads of other stuff around, but then I am a bit of a collector and didn't like leaving items behind and I ended up doing the runs from Dungeon to City and back again, carting loot.

I ended up using a saddle bags mod to carry more stuff and that seemed like a good idea.

I'd like to see items get removed when you leave them lying around unprotected though. It kind of ruined the fun when you knew you could just drop items anywhere and pick them up at a later date.

Big inventories also get very annoying and it would be nice to be forced to only carry a small amount.

I'd like to see buyable backpacks as well as saddle bags.

This. Oh so very this.

I agree about the grid system you mentioned, I've been thinking about this too. I also thought maybe the character could have slots. So they can carry two large weapons on their back, two smaller weapons on their side, and wear one suit of armour. Any extra items would have to be fairly small. This would be very realistic, but maybe too realistic... it pretty much negates the ability to take any extra armour, in addition to the armour you wear.

I think one thing people need to remember about TES, is that the game is an RPG, It's not supposed to be so realistic that you can only carry one set of armour, a sword and shield and a few other items, you're supposed to be able to dungeon crawl and ransack it for 200-300lbs of loot, I get annoyed when people complain that it's unrealistic and all these other complaints, it's an RPG and most of the time people treat the game like it's real life, and I would personally rather see so you can use magic to carry more items, or just plain out have a mount with a saddle to have more loot.

edit: Not everybody likes too only be able to carry a small amount of items, I RP on OB but I treat it as though I have a magical bag to carry all my items, that I take and sell the items to the shop and use a mystic stone to teleport back to my location (Fast travel) that I can only use every 3-4 hours real time.

i voted for everything but MAGIC. i don't like to use magic >.< lol.

I think that they should handle the carrying limit differently - when you hit the limit, you should move very slowly, but still be able to move.

Weapon slots-Perfectly Realistic
Drop a bag full of gear in the middle of a fight to search for a weapon and you'd get killed. Solution? Increase durability of weapons. Armor should still get torn up and dented in a fight though.

I don't get the OCD need to grab every rusty weapon, torch and rock until there's nothing left in the dungeon. It's just not necessary. It shouldn't be encouraged with a flimsy unrealistic system of weight & strength/stamina capacity. The amount of junk that could be carried in previous games was ridiculous. You'd need a 15ft diameter bag to carry it all, and there would be no way to fight while carrying it.

Shopping carts would work though, lol

Maybe a little smaller, but I prefer to play the game as just one character alone without having to bring along NPCs and worry about keeping them alive, so I'd rather they not reduce the carrying capacity too much with the expectation that we're going to use companions, horses, or pack animals.

i guess you're right. i just tried to carry as much as possible so i get me some money lol!
i think that i will just TRY to keep a 2h axe, a silver 2h axe (silver weapons can only kill certain things right? like some enemies can only be killed by silver and magic?), a bow, my armor, potions, and ALL THE ARROWS I CAN (kuz they said arrows will be much rarer but much more useful)!!!

The TES games, with their "enemies have all the gear on them that they look like they should" style, drop VAST amounts of loot.


A "you can carry only a few items" grid is fine for a hack-n-slash grinder like Diablo, where your average guy drops 0-1 pieces, and a major hoard is 6 pieces. Not for TES.


Example for why the grid is bad - even stacks of small items will take one grid slot. Ok, a walk across the countryside might give you a couple dozen different alchemy ingredients. And there's alot more than just "health" and "mana" potions. And more than just "recall" and "identify" scrolls. So, you either can't carry even a fraction of the basic stuff you come across, or you need a huge grid - at which point, why bother?


Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3's loot and carrying system was fine.

I support ideas like these and other similar ideas I may have missed. I would love something that improves not only the believability, but also the strategic decision making of what and how you should go about obtaining loot. Ideas like these are on the right track in my opinion even if they're not perfect..

I agree with this. Carrying huge amounts of loot should be difficult without magic or saddle bags of some kind, it should drain you of stamina and cripple your movement speed. But it should be possible. Otherwise there won't be much point in dungeon crawling with a Heavy Armor character. You'd have enough room to loot a candlestick and maybe a dagger or two, then you've gotta run back to town. That's not fun to me.

Overhauling the fatigue system would go a long way toward making encumbrance more realistic but still enjoyable. You should have to find the nearest crate or empty corner to dump your looted warhammers before a fight, but you should be able to carry them out of the dungeon alright.

As long your cart, horse , wife, is not foldable and can be killed or it can be robed while it seat outside waiting for master to come back.
Onus and bonus...

The way it was in Oblivion was fine. I dont want "realistic" carry capacity. This is a game after all, leave that for HC mode.

It doesn't have to be a 2d flat Diablo loot sack.

It's a 3d game, why not evolve the loot sack to 3d as well?

I like having a magical bag to carry my ton of junk.

No reason it couldn't come in a magic, feather version.

the thing is if they made it realistic and you only had a few slots to carry items then at most of the lower level dungeons and half your encounters would net you close to nothing on profit. So then no money no house ect.. Lots of aggravated people.

any guesses as to how much ore or wood will weigh and how much you will be able to carry in one trip?

as said in another thread the addition of pack animals, carts, magic might be a big hit here!!!