Drowning changes and the Inflatable Vest

[Picklesaurus]

The Inflatable Vest is an item which I have never seriously used or seen being used by others since it was added years ago and its only niche of preventing you from losing Max HP if you drowned while wearing it wont be a thing anymore since the drowning changes removed the penalty of losing Max HP. In the beta Branch it is currently better to drown without any drowning protection than to drown with a Inflatable Vest equipped since in the first case you lose a bit more hp but you get to keep your backpack and all items inside it intact which cant be done with the Inflatable vest since it uses the same body slot as the backpack, which results - if you decide to use the inflatable vest - in you having to craft a new boat and row all the way back to retrieve your backpack in the middle of the sea. This is without considering the new Personal Floater  that was added.
 

Spoiler

I personally like the changes done to Drowning and the Personal Floater being added, but, please, take a look into the inflatable Vest and give it a new use case, here is an example I saw in the main beta thread:

• Make it prevent you from dropping items when you drown, currently you drop some items from your main slot and hand slot when you drown, it preventing you from dropping items from your main slots and hand slot would be a cool niche that differentiates it.

A silly idea I had is it becoming a tool to annoy mobs since it already makes a really annoying rubber sound when you run around while wearing it.
 

 

It would be really fun if mobs - hostile or neutral - would try to hit a Wes that is wearing it in an attempt to make the sound stop, it could become a tool for Wes to make mobs prioritize trying to hit him over other players, as a distraction. This is just an idea, any change that  would make the Inflatable Vest useful would be welcome.

Edited May 23, 2025 by Picklesaurus

[Jakepeng99]

It should have the same effect as the other item.