I wouldn't mind a subtle hint that they are questrelated, but in general I'd use the system from the originals.

Yeah, get rid of them. If you insist, put a message that warns you if you drop it. You should always have the option not to have them in your inventory.

Wow, I'm the only person to vote 'no'. Oh well.



Well, you might not realise the significance of the item at first. You might put it in storage and then forget where. You might, even more prosaically, hit the wrong button and sell it or drop it without noticing. In NV, you might even (as happened to me) store it in a Lucky 38 container that then proceeds to swallow its contents. Making quest items losable like everything else is just a recipe to frustrate an unlucky minority.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1170305-ive-lost-my-ranger-helmet/

I agree that quest items add unescessary inventory clutter, but would suggest they just be given their own tab on the inventory screen (crafting items too). And make them weightless, if they aren't already.

I'd like this.

This is where item descriptions can really help. Did anyone seriously think the tanker FOB in Fallout 2 for instance wasn't significant even if you hadn't yet gotten the quest to retrieve it? It is possible to make these things clear without coddling players with undroppable quest items. Although the respawning containers in the newer Fallouts are strange to me. That should be changed. Merchants should also hold on to quest items you may sell so you can buy them back if you sold them (but you should be prepared for a steep climb in price).



Their own screen is fine but quest items shouldn't necessarily be weightless unless it makes sense for the item to not really weigh anything (like a keycard for example). What if the quest item is a huge boulder (real quest in a great RPG). Should a slight scientist guy just be able to haul it off with no problems on top of everything else he's carrying because it's needed for a quest?

It's more player coddling. Gamers were, and I believe still are better than that. If a quest item is heavy be prepared to haul it as you would for anything else.

If it could be guaranteed that Fallout 4's containers will never swallow or respawn their contents at a whim, then I might be okay with being able to drop quest items (provided a suitably updated quest marker). Maybe. But given that Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3 all had this problem in one form or another, I'm not brimming with confidence we've seen the back of it, even with the new Skyrim engine.

That said, I'm still not convinced that the small amount of "player coddling" isn't worth it, just to avoid a scenario where a player is forced to track back thirty or forty hours of game-time because they've been unlucky enough to lose something important. In such a scenario, I'm proably not going to start all over again, but just abandon the game in indignant fury.



That's fine, when you're talking about side-quests that can be ignored or not as the player sees fit. But not for items that are forced on the player in the main quest. We learnt this lesson already with 50lb Dwemer Coherers in Morrowind.

I don't see it so much as a question of player coddling, but rather of eliminating unnescessary sources of frustration.

Undoubtedly true. But we can always hope.



Like I said an important quest item should be pretty clearly indicated as being both unique and significant. You could also make any items needed for the completion of the main quest (if any were required at all) maybe be the object of the main quest. When you retrieved the water chip in Fallout 1 was anyone really going to drop it?



Which is just a different perspective on where you draw the line. I can respect that. I know people who think automapping was coddling. Can't say I agree with that for instance since the game is just helping you complete a process that would otherwise be tedious and annoying and shouldn't be required to play the game. It's when eliminating unnecessary sources of frustration starts unreasonably limiting what players can do within the game that I start getting annoyed. Unkillable NPCs are another good example of what I would consider coddling.

I agree Okie, I usually always finish up quests promptly anyway so would need to be carrying quest items everywhere anyway. I also usually have a specific "base" where I store my vast arsenal and all my misc gear so it would be very hard for me to "lose" anything, unless I lost EVERYTHING.

Yeah, I think this is probably key. I think that important, MQ-related items should be flagged up as such before you can acquire them. There's no danger of anyone dropping the water chip, because it's made clear from the outset that it's what you're searching for. Where problems might arise is when a quest-important item can be found long before the relevant quest is actually given. I'm thinking, for example, of the various Mcguffins needed for the BoS in NV, which are just sitting around in the Mojave's vaults even if you've never met the BoS. When I found the HEPA filters (or whatever), I figured I'd best hang onto them, but that's because I've played enough of these games to recognise an important-sounding item when I see it. But someone who's not as versed in the mores of RPGs might, in a game as full of seemingly pointless clutter as NV, just take them to be another piece of pointless clutter to be filed alongside finance clipboards and steam gauage assemblies.

(Incedentally, that's not an attack on pointless clutter, the games wouldn't be the same without them.)




Yeah, for me I think excessive inventory micromanagement comes under the 'tedious and annoying processes that shouldn't be required to play the game' banner. (Needless to say I'm not sold on hardcoe mode.) I agree on unkillable NPCs though, for sure (though equally from a writer/game designer's point of view, I can understand their attraction). The magic quest compass, at least in its crudest form, I would suggest as another example of excessive player coddling, but I'm sure not everyone will agree with that either.

I doubt that they will allow you to drop quest items unless they stay where you drop them and the quest arrow point's there but I would love to throw away quest stuff.

That's one thing that annoys me about FO 3 and NV quest items: they clutter your inventory even when you already bea the quest. I'd love to be able to drop them.

That sounds like fun, they should implement it, if not they should atleast do it in HC mode.

i think they should implement it but for the more important quests ( or just the main quest line) the "items" should respawn so the qeust line isn't broken

The way I see it, the most important thing is better inventory management. When the undroppable quest items really start to make me notice them is while I'm trying to sort out all of my tons of equipment, and find out where all that extra weight is coming from. I've got into the habit in Fallout 3/NV where I'm routinely heading back to my current base of operations to sort every bit of inventory into various containers so that I can get rid of all the excess stuff I've been lugging around. It's often not until then that I realize that a third of my weight limit was being taken up with Aid items that I wasn't using, for example, or (in the case of hardcoe Mode) ammo for weapons I wasn't carrying around with me any more. You get so many varieties of these sorts of items that it can be a real pain (to me, at least) to get a sense of just how much you have on you at any given time.

Weapons and apparel, for example - I'm usually only carrying so many (and they individually weigh so much) that it's easier for me to get a sense of how much "room" they're taking up. For example, if I'm carrying 50 pounds worth of weapons - that's usually a lot easier to see than if I had 50 pounds of Brahmin Steaks, Squirrel Meat, and various other food items. So far starters - just a way to sort through inventory in more detail would be a big help.

As far as actual Quest Items go - I'm rather of two minds about this. On the one hand, I don't want to have to be lugging around a bunch of stuff that I know I'm not going to be able to use for a good long time. But I also don't want to have to worry about forgetting I ever had them in the first place - much less where I'd put them. I don't necessarily want the game to be "coddling" me, but I also don't want to be frustrated by a stupid mistake like that.

I do see a couple of possible solutions, however. For starters, I don't foresee all that much of a problem with having a prompt come up before discarding or selling any Quest Items. At least that way, you wouldn't have any excuse for not knowing that a particular item was going to be tied to a quest later on. (Or with all the items you tend to sort through in this game - accidentally dropping it along with a bunch of other stuff you took for junk.)

The other thing would be making sure that the game never "lost" your item, no matter where you put it. I know that's kind of a constant problem with items in general, but you've got to figure at the very least, a Quest Item ought to have top priority when it comes to the game keeping track of it.

Finally, as a last resort - your companions could provide a useful last resort for dire situations. Let's say I'd found a particular Quest Item well before I came upon the actual quest, and had long ago stuffed it in the back of some cupboard somewhere, for "safe keeping." Failing the game being able to remember where you'd put (much less me, as a player,) and to save me the potential hours of trying to track down one specific item once again, maybe at the very least the game could remember that I'd at least found the thing in the first place. That way, say I hit a dead end where I really need that item, then whatever companion I had with me could say something along the lines of "hey, is this what you're looking for? I remember you dropping it a while back, but I figured I'd better hang onto it, just in case..."

I don't particularly like the idea of the game totally barring me from being able to do something because of a stupid mistake like that. I'm all about choice and consequences - but for something like that, I think possibly the stake are a bit too high. Completely being unable to continue a quest (failing it, effectively,) is, I feel, too high a consequence for something as small as accidentally dropping or selling one specific item. I don't want to have to be lugging it around for the whole game - but I also would want the "penalty" for losing it to be in proportion to the scale of my action.

loving the bear stare... but i agree?...dont hurt me :sadvaultboy: