Why we need stash then? Just make inventory endless - it’s way more immersive that way. While putting 30 axes in the magical dimension breaks the immersion, putting infinite number of axes doesn’t.
I’d still prefer the telekinesis scenario.
The game has to make the hero familiar with it in some way - for example the player starting without one and seeing the effect of it when he finds it. Or we can give it consciousness (yes, the bag) and the game can start with a quest that the BoH demands from us. After we complete it - the bag starts serving us. If we decide not to help the bag, it leaves us and we would be given telekinesis to the character. So, now, everyone is happy.
In such scenario the bag has to be smaller and telekinesis having higher limit. Mount saddlebags and villagers would be possible options in both scenarios.
“Oh, Adventurer, you’re here to aid us! Fantastic! Take this Bag of Holding our tailors have made, enchanted by the old witch that lives up the hill, to aid you in your travels!”
The above pretty much puts it in the player’s hands the moment they start their character, and I’d argue a better narrative approach than some weird perversion of telekinesis or introducing the impracticality of an NPC mob following us as glorified escort quests.
So, while I’m for modernizing games and bringing new features to improve player QoL, I can’t say your proposals have made me feel I want to see it or even really tweak it slightly. Sometimes some concepts just work and don’t need changed.
The villagers mechanic will be done with contracts. You’d sign these in town before usage and you’ll pay for them in advance. For example:
Contract [10 villagers, 12 miles radius of town Kargar] - that would mean the villagers would pick up to 20 items maximum and you can rely on them in 12 miles around Kargar.
When you then have a big fight outside Kargar and many precious items drop it would be profitable enough for you to use the contract you have. From gameplay pov - you’d right click the contract in your inventory (not the BaH, regular inventory for non-arsenal), which would place a banner around the dead bodies signaling the passing villagers to carry the items to your hideout. It’s one click to send 20 items to your stash.
Otherwise you can use the BoH/telekinesis for some items, the mount’s saddlebags or one of your portal scrolls.
“this magical 12 drawer dresser also swaps your abilities around too…”
Its a superpowered 12 drawer dresser.
It makes your zeal turn into lightning shock auras if you click the button.
It makes your bow turn into a javelin.
Just touch the button.
It’s lazy, its not smart design, its lazy.
Lazy means not authentic,
Lazy means immersion…busted.
Minus well let the armory also make us hallucinate and see strawberry shortcake and the forest creatures from south park on the screen if it’s that magical and out of this world.
It lets items have value in the sense that they’re worth gold to you, since the reality is that not every item gets to be something you consider equipping.
An upgrade feels rewarding because it’s an upgrade and I get more powerful. “travel resources” shouldn’t really be something you manage all that much. This isn’t a simulation game.
It’s a potential explanation for your inventory as it’s a rather common item in RPGs to use, and it’s a hell of a lot more reasonable than “My Barbarian learned how to do magic, just to teleport items long distances”.
The comment about lore is more about you saying that Town Portals are somehow less immersive than the magic Barbarian that teleports things. As I said, they’re a 100% established fact in Diablo.
It also takes away value from them since the player can collect everything and there is no choice involved.
This isn’t lore however. I too gave explanations in OP.
The truth is there’s no such thing as BoH in Diablo lore, which shouldn’t be a problem of course to be added through a quest as suggested above, but the telekinesis and other options should be added too.
The game gets more interesting when we have different options regarding an activity that is so frequent (the collecting of items).
The player isn’t collecting everything in any previous Diablo game unless they’re being super inefficient about it.
Town Portals however, are lore.
Why in the hell would a Barbarian learn telekinesis? That makes less sense than our backpacks being pocket dimensions.
It’s established lore that telekinesis isn’t something you just randomly know. It requires training in the magic arts. The Barbarian, Druid, and Rogue all lack the training to use the ability.
Unlike the Bag of Holding, what you gave was some stuff that wouldn’t fit within the lore that you didn’t bother to read.
It seems like you want Diablo 4 to be just about anything except a Diablo game.
With this skill a Sorceress can reach out with her mind and manipulate distant objects. By manipulating the Ether that permeates the world, she is even able to retrieve items out of her reach, or send her attacks to distant enemies.
Every hero should be able to manipulate the Ether in some way:
The Ether (a.k.a. the ethereal realm or aether) is a realm separate from the physical plane. It is the source of magic... It is through the Ether that teleportation is made possible, traversing the Ether to instantly appear in a separate location. Manipulation of the Ether within the physical plane also allows the use of telekinesis.
Enigma → Teleportation → Ether → Telekinesis
There isn’t a lore error here. Every class should be able to do teleportation/telekinesis, because we already had the Enigma in D2, which allowed the lore for it.
BoH or runeword - no difference, the lore supports it. We’ll introduce some item for it and make the player familiar with the telekinesis option for item storing in the tutorial.
You make that decision in every single A-RPG out there. Despite having an inventory that can hold more than a few items.
Creating an endlessly big pocket dimension would require an endless amount of energy. After decades of experiments, the sorceresses determined that pocket dimension size X was the safest approach, to prevent a global ice age in Sanctuary. Anyone who try to create larger inventory pocket dimensions are hunted down.
Maybe add some NPCs you can pay to give you a spin when your character gets tired. Brilliant!
Decades ago certain runes were being mass-produced in the darkest corners of Sanctuary. These days you cant go anywhere without stumbling upon an Enigma. Citizens of Sanctuary are praying for a Rust Storm to take away the 1 trillion Enigmas ruining their fields and lakes. But it never comes.
Giving everyone perfect gear at lvl 1 would definitely solve the “issue” of picking up items, I guess :S
Or we just use the established method that works: Have the normal inventory that lets players carry more than 1-2 items from the start so we can focus on what the game does well rather than playing inventory management the game.