First of all, I love the game. Thank you, Moon Studios for an amazing experience.
Before I start my rant, I would like to remind everyone the Early Access version of the game is just a tip of the iceberg for all the content that is to come. Thomas used the analogy in a twitter post saying that EA is just a test screening for their Lord of the Ring trilogy and they will be working on the game for 5- 10 years.
This means the entire Chapter 1 (All the content available in the Early Access) is very early game. Meaning that Housing doesn’t come in “too late” (as it was said in another tweet) when compared to the entire vision of the game.
Reasons why it is a bad idea:
Reason 1: Making housing available from the start hurts the narrative of the game. The in-world ramifications would be insane. At the current time, housing becomes available only when you save sacrament from Darak and Winnick reveals that he was keeping an eye on us the entire time and because we proved ourselves an ally of sacrament is the reason we are allowed to buy a house (completely trusted by people of sacrament) is an amazing way to unlock new content (housing).
Reason 2: Going through the entire sewer section and having to fight a boss with two phases was only made better when I realized that it was all worth it because I could buy a house now. Any reward that replaces this might not feel worth it.
Reason 3: It doesn’t solve the real problem. Inventory Management is not going to get better just because we bought a house early. At this rate the developers just want us to buy a “warehouse” which we fill with chests and not a place to call home.
The problem with inventory management is not primarily lack of space but a lack of knowledge of what the item does or is used for. If the game does a better job at communicating that a certain item is used for let’s say making throwable flasks and the player isn’t interested in it than they can make a decision to discard or sell it.
The way the system stands now players have to try to save all the items they find because they don’t know when they might need that item in the future.
Solution:
- Tell the player what the item is used for and improve the QoL.
- Give players more community chests or give them 3 separate chests (one for armor/weapons, one for consumables and one for resources). With the increased inventory space coming in the future updates, it will give players three times the space and make inventory management in the early game less of a mess.
This will also train people for one of the most important mechanics in the game:
Inventory Management.
Yes. A game that requires a player to run around and gather resources / save those resources for later use will have Inventory Management as the core part of gameplay.
Therefore, Access to housing early is not going to make the entire experience better for the player (it only hurts the in-game narrative and world). Improve QoL please.
Thoughts?