prevent throwing weapons and arrows from getting lost

[badhabit]

(@Dr.Disaster: seriously, I don't know why you defend buggy and imperfect behaviour so furiously in LoG? I mean I love LoG...but there are places in the game which are plainly frowsy designed or implemented... why not fixing them? many of them could be pretty easily fixed?)

I already laid that out in your bug collection thread quite a while ago and above. There is nothing to "fix" with the auto-pickup because it is not broken. AH did choose to make the auto-pickup the way it works now. If you dislike how and when it works that's your point of view, not "buggy" or "imperfect".

Well, an intended behaviour which just not fits the taste of everyone and a inconsistent and plainly unpolished behaviour which fits not the inherent vision behind it are very different things. As also the feedback of others in this thread indicates the pickup mechanique is much more the second case than the first one.

[MadMyke]

Aye running enchanted ammo with multiple rogues can get tricky if you have just one mage to support it or you want to use him for something else. The enchanting tends to get in the way here so it prolly get's ditched pretty quick anyway.

Regarding the amount of ammo i'd say 20 per kind is quite fair, maybe up to 30. More would overpower a rogue. Also there's nothing wrong with swaping between sling,bow and xbow or reaching for backup throwables.

I have been running a party with a kind of quirky set-up:

Minotaur Fighter - Sword & Board
Human Fighter - Unarmed & Throwing
Human Rogue - Bow & Arrow (with Crossbow & Quarrel for back-up)
Human Mage - Casting & Bombs

It may seem a bit unorthodox but has been very effective for both melee and ranged combat. I decided to import them (lvl 20ish) into Master Quest and I am looking forward to the weapon set swapping feature for my archer. The issue of enchanted and unenchanted ammunition is a tricky one and I will test out your strategy of equipping a single unenchanted arrow of quarrel on my mage to clean up after fights. It seems to be the least tedious way to go about this.

-MadMyke

[Komag]

Sorry Dr, I'm with badhabit on this one. I find myself never enchanting arrows or bolts due to the hassle of dealing with the situation, just not worth the hassle. And quick weapon-swap functionality of the Action Bar breaks the auto-pick-up anyway. It's a problem that needs to be solved better in Grimrock 2 I think.

[JohnWordsworth]

Yeah, I agree that it's not great at the moment. It's nice to have an auto-pickup feature, it's just a shame that it's not as useful as it first appears.

My biggest gripe is as Komag states - if you have a rogue and you're enchanting arrows (a cool feature) then you have to sift through the remains of every skeleton you kill to find your arrow again. Most of the time, this makes it not worth the effort to use enchanted ammo. It would be nice if the archer would pickup the fired ammo (even if it's not unenchanted) and put it in their back-pack.

[Dr.Disaster]

Sorry Dr, I'm with badhabit on this one. I find myself never enchanting arrows or bolts due to the hassle of dealing with the situation, just not worth the hassle. And quick weapon-swap functionality of the Action Bar breaks the auto-pick-up anyway. It's a problem that needs to be solved better in Grimrock 2 I think.

Well I can't tell about the Action Bar's interaction with auto-pickup but badhabit's point is not about enchanted ammo or the enchanting process. His issue is about auto-pickup not working on squares with pressure plates.

The "hassle" with enchanted/disenchanted ammo is rather simple to solve yet many are not aware how; it took myself a while to get it. The rogue holds the enchanted ammo and the mage holds the disenchanted ammo. While the rogue fires his enchanted ammo the mage auto-picks up any disenchanted ammo that falls to the ground. Once the rogue runs out of ammo simply grab one unit of disenchanted ammo with a shift-click from the mage's stack onto the mouse cursor and then cast the enchant spell. Now swap the disenchanted ammo unit from the mouse cursor with the mage's enchanted stack which then is handed to the rogue. This way both pickup and (re)enchanting are solved very efficent.

[JohnWordsworth]

... This way both pickup and (re)enchanting are solved very efficent.

It's nice that it works, but given that you only have 8 hand slots, it seems rather inefficient to use 3 of those 8 spaces just to be able to use a ranged weapon. My hands are usually always configured thusly;

Front Row; Fighter (Weapon, Shield) | Fighter (Weapon, Shield)
Back Row; Rogue (Ranged Weapon, Ammo) | Mage (Torch, Wand)

I don't really want to lose any of those just to be able to use enchanted ammo!

[MadMyke]

... This way both pickup and (re)enchanting are solved very efficent.

It's nice that it works, but given that you only have 8 hand slots, it seems rather inefficient to use 3 of those 8 spaces just to be able to use a ranged weapon. My hands are usually always configured thusly;

Front Row; Fighter (Weapon, Shield) | Fighter (Weapon, Shield)
Back Row; Rogue (Ranged Weapon, Ammo) | Mage (Torch, Wand)

I don't really want to lose any of those just to be able to use enchanted ammo!

I would have to agree. If LoG allowed a six-champion party as Wizardry does, using a character for ammo clean-up wouldn't seem so far off. With only 4 champions, tying up a hand slot to have auto-pickup function effectively seems like a much bigger sacrifice than it's worth. While it's nice to have the extra punch from enchanted arrows, it seems frustrating to say the least.

[Dr.Disaster]

... This way both pickup and (re)enchanting are solved very efficent.

It's nice that it works, but given that you only have 8 hand slots, it seems rather inefficient to use 3 of those 8 spaces just to be able to use a ranged weapon. My hands are usually always configured thusly;

Front Row; Fighter (Weapon, Shield) | Fighter (Weapon, Shield)
Back Row; Rogue (Ranged Weapon, Ammo) | Mage (Torch, Wand)

I don't really want to lose any of those just to be able to use enchanted ammo!

I would have to agree. If LoG allowed a six-champion party as Wizardry does, using a character for ammo clean-up wouldn't seem so far off. With only 4 champions, tying up a hand slot to have auto-pickup function effectively seems like a much bigger sacrifice than it's worth. While it's nice to have the extra punch from enchanted arrows, it seems frustrating to say the least.

Yep it's a matter of preference what to hand a mage. It could be a torch or a spear or bombs or throwning weapons. I usually hand a young mage spare rocks so he has something to fight with once his mana is gone.

[badhabit]

Sorry Dr, I'm with badhabit on this one. I find myself never enchanting arrows or bolts due to the hassle of dealing with the situation, just not worth the hassle. And quick weapon-swap functionality of the Action Bar breaks the auto-pick-up anyway. It's a problem that needs to be solved better in Grimrock 2 I think.

Well I can't tell about the Action Bar's interaction with auto-pickup but badhabit's point is not about enchanted ammo or the enchanting process. His issue is about auto-pickup not working on squares with pressure plates.

The "hassle" with enchanted/disenchanted ammo is rather simple to solve [...].

I would call this solution a creative but unnecessary tedious workaround. And, my point is not the pressure plate aspect but indeed the in general unpolished auto-pickup behaviour. The pressure plate thinggy is just one of the situations were the good idea of autopickup works not out that well, the dis-enhanced arrows and weapon swap are just some more (and there are more). Also, autopickup is not the only game mechanic aspect which was a good idea on paper only but stand the test in practical use not that well.

Therefore, I believe it is important to give truthful feedback (and not hide bad aspects by arguing "but, there are workarounds!") to the developers about unpolished parts, so that they can improve & polish this parts for LoG2.