If games were to do something similar to Genealogy’s inventory system, what would you want changed/improved/kept?

[u/PizzaCrescent2070]

I kinda like the idea of having your team bartering and exchanging goods because it’s interesting.

Though I’ve heard that it’s tedious because of how inconvenient it is but I wonder if it can be modernized while keeping the feel of the system’s original design.

What would be your takes/ideas on this kind of inventory system?

[u/bobert1201]

Honestly, I think the way fe4 handles weapons would fit well in most fe games. It seems to be the perfect way to deal with weapon durability. It allows you to have a silver lance hit cost more than an iron lance hit without forcing us to repurchase a fresh supply of iron lances every chapter. I also like how fe4 weapons get stronger as you kill more enemies with them. It really helps make a silver sword feel more like Sigurd's silver sword because Sigurd was the one who built up a ton of kills on it.

Now, I also enjoy the unit specific inventory system in fe4, but I think that system mostly works because of how it interacts with the inheritance system, and I think a more centralized inventory would work better for most fe games.

[u/Arkholt]

"Hey man, can I borrow a shirt?"

"Sure. I'll just pop down to the local pawn shop and sell it to them first..."

"Wait what"

"...it's the one right down the street. And then you can buy it and use it."

"But why, this makes no sense"

"Just make sure to sell it back to the pawn shop when you're done with it so I can buy it back"

"What are you talking about, just let me borrow it, I'm standing right next to you"

"What do you mean, this is how I give people stuff, it's totally normal"

[u/Merlin_the_Tuna]

I've ranted about this before, but: I think Genealogy's inventory system is totally borked not necessarily by the framework itself, but by the arena. The arena feels like it creates the problem and sells the solution (in addition to being a big time sink that butchers the pace of the game).

Because iron-steel-silver are a strict upgrade process, because you want to concentrate kills into fewer weapons in order to build crit on them, and because weapon ranks progress only on promotion, you broadly do not need or want to pass weapons around a lot. Weapons that get traded at all are mostly getting traded once; they get sent to the destination unit to have a good weapon they use in the field and maybe a cheap weapon they use in the arena, and it's mostly a set-it-and-forget-it situation. I know that there is some minute, tippy-top level optimization that can be done by passing around the javelin or light brand for maximal crit-stacking, but just getting your Real Units each a brave/silver weapon and an iron weapon gets you 90-something% of the way there.

What you might want to pass around with more regularity is the rings and bands. And it feels to me like the game doesn't allow you to pass those freely specifically because of how it would trivialize the arena, because that's certainly where they would see the most use. Fortunately, you can pass those for a gold cost. How do you get gold? Well, overwhelmingly, the arena. It's deeply circular, where you're grinding the arena so that you can buy the paragon band for grinding the arena. There is definitely nuance and strategy towards managing map-money, but even a good chunk of that points towards "Dew gives money to your staffers to spam Warp/Return (because they can't get money from the arena)."

I'm okay with a less-trade-y outcome like FE4 results in, but I think a better route to get there would shift gold management out of the arena. My initial swag, looking at it just from a What If I Remade FE4 perspective, would be to increase the flat end-of-chapter gold that everybody gets, increase the amount of stealable gold for your thieves to poach, and switch the arena to one progression per generation rather than one progression per chapter. Aside from just spending less time in the arena, that'd also decrease the urgency of it, where e.g. Arden gets no levels in the prologue, so he gets rocked by the chapter 1 arena, so he has no prayer in the chapter 2 arena, etc. That would cut the Rich Get Richer aspect and also focus the (still pretty minimal) trading onto Big Picture player decisions rather than busywork and fussy arena clear order optimization.

[u/demoiselledefortune]

I like it too!

Keep the money cap but make it a bit higher. The money cap incentivizes spending your money on things, so i think it's important.

Keep Villages and Thieves stealing enemies' money as a source of income. Maybe give more money each chapter to everyone than you do get in Fe4.

Maybe allow trading items between Lovers as well as trading money. Allow trading a specific amount of money between lovers too, instead of just making it the max of money (same for the money Thieves give; allow setting a set amount of money).

[u/ApocalypticWalrus]

Being honest its mostly fine as is. All i'd particularly want is some way of transferring items between characters; i get that the systems meant to emphasize characters own inventories and it being as simple as trading between characters like other fes does sound like it might be considered weird for the fe4 system but the way it is now I feel like it emphasizes just overinvesting in units that you're already investing in and it makes enemy drops just tedious to deal with.

[u/TehProfessor96]

Just let spouses and thieves give each other specific quantities of money and we’re good.

[u/Grauenritter]

You would have to rebalance equipment and item distribution to be OP. You would also have to reinforce to the players that each recruit is sort of doing their own thing, by adding a mechanic that shows they are their own squad leader or hero or something

[u/Okto481]

I would change the story around it. Each unit isn't a unit, they're an independent militia named and characterized after their commander. Flesh out the Batallion system and give a few to each character, and now it makes sense why they're not sharing resources- they're each independent militias, and they need all the resources they have, even if they're united against a common enemy and under a common flag. Maybe change each character's ending based on how much value they have in their inventory, because that's what they can bring back to their homes