Backpacks & More!

[Em3rgency]

Hi! Saw this game on the Cynical Brit yesterday and bought it almost immediately after playing the demo, loving what I see so far. Very unique, very amazing. On to some feedback!

Not enough room! I'm a pack rat. I tend to pick up pretty much everything (except the currently useless, to my knowledge, flowers). The default inventory slot amount is just fine currently. You can pretty much carry 1 stack of all the crafting materials with a slot or two to spare. Obviously this will change in the future as the game gets more and more fleshed out. Possible solutions:

[*]Backpack. Equipable item, adds inventory space, slows down character movement to be below that of enraged wildlife.

[*]More space in chests. Currently the chest capacity is WAYYY too small. I'd imagine a chest can hold AT LEAST as much as a person, more in most cases. I'd see the backpack adding as much as the chest currently does.

[*]Pack mule Pigmen. Brings me neatly to my next point...

Giving items to Pigmen! Ohhh, those silly silly Pigmen. So simple to bend to ones will. They seem to love punching trees to get wood, kind of like in that OTHER survival game. Why not give them an axe? Or a backpack? Granted they tend to get lost or run off and die. It would be a shame if the pigman with all the goodies decides its a nice idea to hit a tier 3 nest, and then you'd have to carry back ALL the items yourself, probably while with no inventory space and having to make two runs, but all in all it would still be worth it. Not to mention fun.

Real weapons can't come Soon enough. Forget swords... Who'd make a goddamn sword in the middle of a forest? Flint spears! Twig, grass, flint and vuolia - a pokey thing! A bow & arrow would also make a nice set. Ooh! Flaming arrows! (Could be whats-her-name pyro girls special thingy) For all that mass charcoal production, now you don't even have to walk up to the forest!

Incredible spacial awareness ruins immersion. The map should be a craftable item. Wilsons magical map-in-his-head holds the location of every bush, twig and pine tree in the entire game world. Not a priority, but with an actual physical map, you could maybe even draw something on it, mark some points of interest, etc.

Are we there yet...? So... much... walking... My current game world is very specialised. All the stone is in one corner, all the grass in the other, the beefallos across from both of those. Now of course scouring for useful things is the main point of this game, but a nice quick magical way to pop back into your home base ,every 2nd day for instance, would be a very welcome addition.

Utility slot. The aforementioned backpack and map items could be placed in this slot. If the amulet item gets any magic powers later on, this would also be where it would go. But its either/or! Specialize! So, you either have extra room for when you're going on those "Get all the materials!" runs, or you carry a map to know where you are when you're going adventuring, or you have some other freaky power... Pick one!

Edited September 17, 2012 by Em3rgency

[Vulturas]

This is beta... please take it easy on the "do this! do that!" routine. The devs have already seen stuff being said that they will add. Think of what could make the gameplay better, not what other shiny stuff you can get.

[Em3rgency]

In case I was not clear, these are all suggestions and what I would like to see in the game. I'm not DEMANDING any of it I saw a dev post somewhere specifically asking for whats good and whats bad in the game in the player opinion. I am a player and this thread is my opinion.

[Vulturas]

Those are just suggestions...

[Goremech]

The current inventory space is fine, if not the right size. At its heart this is a Survival game, and to do so you have to make decisions, do i carry the wood, or the small stack of gold? its thinking like this which will determine weather or not you will survive the night.

After watching a pig punch down a tree i attempted to give him an axe, when sprung to mind that they have trotters instead of hands.

Then Can not physically hold them.

But Try giving them a hat!

You raise a good point on having a craft-able map, perhaps a combination of the papyrus and charcoal could lead to its creation.

[Em3rgency]

At its heart this is a Survival game, and to do so you have to make decisions, do i carry the wood, or the small stack of gold?

I agree 100%. Please note that all my more space suggestions have a downside. The backpack would make you vulnerable to hostile creatures, as you would not be able to run away from them, the larger chest would remain immobile and the pigmen are not trustworthy at all.

[Goremech]

Please note that all my more space suggestions have a downside. The backpack would make you vulnerable to hostile creatures.

Perhaps the backpack could take up the Armour/body slot? having to choose the pack or the Armour would allow you to choose weather or not you want the added protection of the amour or the added inventory spaceIf it maybe worked similar to a chest (6 slots), i think i would actually like an fully support this it.Its just a matter of how much space it would add.

[Mr.Pandastic]

I think that if there was a backpack it should only add 2-3 extra slots. Not really liking the pig army idea though. This would kind of break the game until the difficulty gets raised up and more things attack you during the day and night.

[Vulturas]

The backpack would be okay if:1. it would add only a handful of inv slots2. has VERY lot durability3. if it gets destroyed, items fall on the ground

[Excess]

I like where the backpack idea is going.

[*]Craftable with: 2 twigs, 1 rope and 3 rabbit's hide (randomly dropped along with the morsel).

[*]Equipable on the armor slot: Either you use armor, or you carry stuff around. When you drop the backpack, it stays on the map with everything inside forever. You can even have multiple backpacks. ¹

[*]Without backpack, you would have the first row of inventory slots only. When "backpacking" the second one would appear.

¹ This would render the chests useless, UNLESS its capacity is upgraded, AND they add a little behavior on pigs called "Uhh, nice abandoned backpack in the middle of the woods, I'll take it with me". Yes, I did just suggested that. This way, living in pigtown won't be as pleasant and safe as everybody would expect. You leave a backpack lying around and a pig will snatch it. You'll have to fight him for it or wait for him to go to sleep to steal it. OR you can make chests, unmovable chest with a lock on it so nobody can steal from you.

HEY! but we didn't earn any extra space, its even more difficult that way!

Exactly. This game gets to easy to fast. We should be doing things more complicated/realistic, not making it easier.

The same goes to the magic-teleporter thingy. Wheres the FUN on that? The idea is that leaving camp to collect resources should be a RISK. You should be putting in danger everything you've build by venturing out and surviving a couple of nights out in the open. You can always have "outpost" camps if you don't like taking risks.

Come on people, let's make this game MORE CHALLENGING.

[Malsqueek]

Perhaps the backpack could take up the Armour/body slot? having to choose the pack or the Armour would allow you to choose weather or not you want the added protection of the amour or the added inventory spaceIf it maybe worked similar to a chest (6 slots), i think i would actually like an fully support this it.Its just a matter of how much space it would add.

I wholly agree with a backpack as a form of "Armor". Better still if it only added 2 bordered slots in the expanded inventory (when you pull the inventory up), indicating what is in the backpack.I would be hesitant to throw much more than about 2 extra slots on the player. I can't tell you how many times I have wanted to hold just one more thing, but much more than 2 slots and you would start pushing Chests to a more late-game feature than an earlier game requirement for exploration.2 Ropes and a couple silk would be totally reasonable for that, if you ask me.

[Em3rgency]

The same goes to the magic-teleporter thingy. Wheres the FUN on that? The idea is that leaving camp to collect resources should be a RISK. You should be putting in danger everything you've build by venturing out and surviving a couple of nights out in the open. You can always have "outpost" camps if you don't like taking risks.

I'm all for challenging, but you get to a point where the wilderness no longer threatens you and all the constant walking becomes very tedious and repetitive. Now I am not saying you should be able to teleport around at will. It needs to be a magical skill that requires 400+ research points and either it would have a long cooldown or be very resource costly or even both!

[Zalamier]

Wow, I like where all this is going. Great ideas excess. The beginning of the game would be hard to survive. Could take it one step further. Pigmen are... well, pigs. I have had them eat my morsels before right after killing a rabbit. Very irritating. Why not have them eat dropped items if they see them. That way you don't get them back. Or maybe just the food. Instead of having to steal the equipment part back, make it to where you have to buy it back from the big pig with...gold nuggets. I agree about the teleporting idea, it would make it way too easy. But how about mounts. To make the travel a little faster. I can see the little guy riding that spider now, or rabbit...poor, little rabbit... Anyways, I like the idea that the chest can protect your goods. I would really like to see the magical amulets. I think that has some interesting possibilities to it. But might not let Wilson be able to use it, we already went against science once with the effigy.

[Goremech]

What if the bag only gave us four slots? This would cure everyone's urge to pick up that one extra item, an keep the chests perfectly feasible? As for materials, you could even have different tiers of bag requiring different items, Although i wouldn't find this idea that appealing.