With the current stash system it will be impossible to build nice and cozy house because to play effectively we are forced to utilize all available space to place as many chest as possible. And the sizes of the chests won’t help either. More items it can store - bigger physically it is. Additionally stack size make this problem even worse. You can’t reliably store all the loot you get in one thematical chest. You can’t reliably store all items related to a single activity (cooking, smelting, potion crafting) in one chest. There are a lot of activities in this game and a lot of items associated with them. Even with the largest avaialable chest eventually it would be impossible to keep all cooking ingridients in one chest and you have to put several which will lead to ugly utilization of space and stash micro management. Which let’s be honest the least thing you want to do in this beautiful game.
Thus in my opinion there are several problems which lead to overall dissatisfuction by the current inventory management system:
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Stack size. I don’t mind to have limitation of stacks in player’s inventory. But I really dislike it for chests. While I understand it may come from immersion part but is it really justifiable immersion? What actual value it gives to a player? In my opinion it impacts player in a very negative way forcing to unnecessary micro manage and memorization. I have much more enjoyable things to do in this game. I don’t want to work in a warehouse.
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Physical relation between chest and stash inventory. Again. I understand immersion and physical aspect. Want to keep more loot? - Buy more chests. Good on paper, bad in reality. I don’t understand real value of this for a gameplay loop. Pair it up with the problem #1 and you’ll get inventory hell. There are some many more enjoable things to do in a game. I can fight mobs, build a cozy house, do some questing, etc. Inventory management is the least enjoable activity and should be simple and comfortable enough to not spent too much time and attention for it.
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Loot/Item pollution. It is really cool I can cook Kebab, Borsch or Pasta de Sardine. But it bloats loot. Half of my inventory usually are different types of meals. Which realistically I will not use because I have 1-3 of them. In a battle I would prefer to have at least 10 to relibly use it. Because if for an unfortunate reason I’ll run out of the current type of food and I don’t know which one will be selected next. Same thing for flasks. Small, med, large (,huge??). This pollutes loot tables and doesn’t give anything meaningful in return.
These problems lead to overall dissutisfaction of the game. Loot is a major pillar in any arpg. And should be treated as serious as combat flow and itemization. And while I have no objections to the latters, the former in my opinion implemented poorly. My chests and my inventory are full of different loot which I have no purpose now. But who know when you need it. It it makes my play uncomfortable. Don’t try to fight hoarding habbits of your players. Embrace it! And help your players to leverage problems which come with it.
To wrap up and suggest something:
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Increase stack size for chests. How about 5k?
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Refine items. Items related to one activity should fit one page of stash tab. I guess it is fine to split input and output items. But there should not be a situation where I need several chests to keep items related to smelting for example. Items itself should be more meaningful and useful. Not just an immersion fillers.
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Detach storage system for physical chests. Chests should be access points which gives you access to your items within a house. Let us buy tabs instead. I want to see my house as a living place with all these useless but cozy thing like tables, beds, pictures on a wall, etc. Not an ugly optimized storage rooms. Plus there is a good opportunity to allow us to name tab and add custom icons to it.
Thanks for reading.