Inventory discussion, post-0.38

[Wokel]

Dear devs,

You are killing your own game with this inventory issue (At least for me personally). I am not motivated to collect additional equipment, because I can never keep it without trashing some other project I want to work on. This is not a good experience.

And this is coming from one of the lucky ones with a level 45 Northelm. This leaves me with the allowance for 140 pieces of gear. With this thread, I am going to try and show the difficulty and frustration that comes with gear collection (or lack of it…). I have subdivided my thoughts/opinions into five categories:

• Facts (until someone comes and disagrees)
• Meta
• Factors weighing me down
• Desire
• Risks

Facts:

• Each class can have 12 pieces of equipment. We currently have 5 classes. Even with legendary Northelm, I can only have two sets of gear for each class and one class can have 3 gear sets.
• There are currently 15 different gear sets. Some of the gear sets are oriented to a certain color, while others appear more mixed.
• The gear you get is highly random, and even if you get a certain piece of gear in that color, the attributes may be incorrect.
• Some gear is absolutely necessary for “meta” play.
• “Meta” play is absolutely necessary for meaningful progression.

Meta
Below is a small table looking for the necessary equipment for “meta” gameplay. I am sure other people will disagree with some of the numbers of included equipment, but I also believe most longer-term players will agree at least with the general number of equipment necessary.

Currently, I would say a very specific set of 73 items is (In my opinion) absolutely required for end-game play. For more ideal play (I.e., matching colors in PVE), 110 items are required. To me, long-term players look towards the ideal and therefore I will work off of the 110 items being required. (Also, see risks below – I can imagine at some point we will be forced into it).

Now this is just the bare minimum, and it essentially would mean everyone is wearing only guards and royal armor pieces with a few token Best-in-Slot substitutes here and there. This is not a fun game, but this is mostly what is required to assure we aren’t hit below maximum life in the events or that we can obtain a stable gem income.

A fun game would allow us to enjoy the features made available to us. You made fifteen armor sets, why wont you let me play with them? My inventory is currently sitting (as predicted a month and a half ago) at approximately 135 constantly. This means that every few battles I need to leave just to trash some new items. What is weighing me down?

Factors weighing me down:

• Imperfect drops. I have lots of non-ideal equipment. I do not currently have an ideal replacement in epic and therefore, and do not have the interest to trash my level 35 red bone legs which was one of my first epics.
• Imperfect drops. Both of my epic weapons are in the same weekly bracket.
• Perfect goals. I want to be able to try and aim for the best gear for each individual circumstance. I want to make a speed-farming build, a smart build, a build targeting specific colors in PVP. I want to be able to start working on and planning builds for the future.
• Imperfect goals. I want certain sets, regardless of whether they are best-in-slot. I am hoarding a purple night set, a red firewalker set, green serpentine set, a blue bone set. The funny thing is – my imperfect goals are perfectly aligned with the game devs design – its not like I am sad because I can’t keep a green firewalker set.
• Meta+. While I still am nowhere near reaching “perfect meta” goals, I have managed to surpass it by getting some additional best-in-slot items for certain gear sets (green serpentines belt, yellow jeweled tower).
• Uncertainty. I have no idea whether any major changes in the future will completely upend my item collection.
• Investment. I enjoy the game, and I probably play more than most (60 – 90 minutes average every day). I am devoting a lot of my time to using your product, and I also plan to constantly pay into VIP. I really don’t feel like I am getting enough value for my time here, primarily due to this reason. When I get items slowly, its not great. But when I get items slowly, and I have to constantly trash pieces that I specifically want? It leaves a very bad feeling – frustration.
• Frustration. Frustration doesn’t incentivize me to farm for additional gear. I would rather invest my hours elsewhere.

Desire:
This is the whole topic of the thread. The inventory situation wasn’t really made better by the recent improvement, as the recent improvement was not really enough to remedy the new inventory challenges due to the addition of set bonuses. Inventory still needs a very large boost, or the whole concept of storage needs to be addressed. Many players have spoken out and provided their opinions, so I won’t say more than this.

Risks:
Now to my last point – which is perhaps most critical. None of us outsiders know what is to come, but below I have included a few risks which will dramatically worsen the inventory issue and (if not addressed by then) lead to rightful moral decreases in the community. These changes in itself aren’t bad whatsoever, but they will have a drastically negative outcome on the current inventory problem:

• Future PvE events requiring certain color equipment to compete.
• Future PvE events requiring certain armor sets to compete.
• Future equipment drastically shifting the meta.

Notes:
I get very little time to sit behind my computer for non-work purposes drafting responses – but if there are any major corrections I will try to make them.

TL;DR: Give more inventory.

[Mythos]

Could I agree with all of the above and approach it from a different angle
Where is the FUN in limited inventory space?
What purpose is it serving?

[Tresk]

Ack! Take that meta list out!! I fear (based on the history so far) they will attempt to solve the problem by making all of the “meta” gear useless.

[shmaunpq]

I still don’t get it. There are 40 unique minions yet the storage is way higher than that. Not sure about spells but it must be close to be able to have 1 of each spell. For weapons, accessories and armour there are (if my numbers are correct) effectively 450 different ones when leveled with unique colour magic and the storage is capped at 140 (if and when you finally get that much storage). You could add 45 more to 450 if you want duplicate rings as there is 2 slots. This is leading me to follow guides to decide what to keep and scrap so I can fit everything in my inventory. I’d rather have a bigger inventory and work things out for myself so I’m not so scared to salvage something I may actually need later on. Or I could try different setups rather than copy the “optimal” ones. I occasionally find myself salvaging what i get from chests straight away just so I don’t have the hassle of going to my inventory to find something to salvage.
EDIT: Right now my inventory is capped at 100 and it’s going to be a loooong time before I get enough crystals to upgrade Northelm any further. I’m finding 100 VERY restrictive at the moment and spend too much time deciding what to salvage and what to keep which isn’t fun.

[Wokel]

@Wokel

Risks:
Now to my last point – which is perhaps most critical. None of us outsiders know what is to come, but below I have included a few risks which will dramatically worsen the inventory issue and (if not addressed by then) lead to rightful moral decreases in the community. These changes in itself aren’t bad whatsoever, but they will have a drastically negative outcome on the current inventory problem:

• Future PvE events requiring certain color equipment to compete.
• Future PvE events requiring certain armor sets to compete.
• Future equipment drastically shifting the meta.

Well, you decided to go with number three here, and as @Tresk just pointed out, they are at breaking point. We have spent months collecting gear and upgrading our gear in our limited inventory slots - and now all of our planning, hoarding and effort is wasted and we should reconsider everything, which means salvage everything? These nerfs would be more stomachable if we at least had inventory space to keep some of our no-longer ideal gear. Why do we even have so many gear loadouts?

[Tresk]

This is what will be my deal breaker once I am forced to upgrade, which will obviously happen soon. Getting gear in this game is tedious as heck. Keeping gear outside of the meta for pvp (in every color no less) and pve has been virtually impossible, outside of a few. Now I have to go back and get the stuff I had to trash due to limits? Pffft… not gonna happen.

I can deal with changes. But they should have just wiped progress and been done with it. Because they have.

[SALAMANCA]

I hope there’s a proper response. you’ve taken a lot of time and effort to lay it all out so it shows a love for the game. Hopefully they’re big enough to take that seriously because you’re right. And if they don’t at least we can all see it in this thread.

[shmaunpq]

Someone once wrote (I think on discord) that the devs are purposely keeping the inventory very small so the early access players can’t get a huge advantage before the worldwide release. I’m still crossing my fingers that this is the reason it hasn’t been increased previously and we will get a large inventory increase when it’s released out of early access.

[jose]

Since @Kafka has today hinted at the possibility of there being an increase in the inventory space in the WW release, and asked for us players to give our views …

Really this is one of the most important, if not, the most important, concern of all of us, really right from the beginning of PQ3. Added to all the constraints, is the added problem of there being frequent and drastic , so called, “balance changes,” which necessitates salvaging of gear, left and right.

Some have even had the really frustrating experience of salvaging a Legendary gear, only to see it getting really valuable after one of those balance changes.

As I had mentioned in one of my earlier posts, don’t make us Hate a game that one has really loved to play so far, with all the big negatives. I am certainly not forgetting the many positive changes that have happened. But this , inventory restriction, is overshadowing all those good changes.

[Alpaca]

Please, please, MORE inventory space! If we are to take advantage of all gear sets + all colours for all five heroes - we need an increase not by 5. Not by 10. By a multiple of the current inventory slots. Add an extra 100 (at least) after each hero (out of the current 5… and remember, you teased about extra hero classes to come) reaches lvl 50. And it still won’t be enough, after some time people will complain again. Why? Here is why:

We have 11 types of gear x 15 different varieties of gear x 5 colours = 825 possible varieties of gear = at least that many slots to hold them all + it would be fun if we had several back-up slots, e.g. for a second ring of a given variety in the same colour, or some back-ups for e.g. when we keep uncommon gear for future evolving when another piece of gear has wrong attributes. So, easily close to 850-900 in total. With Northelm at yellow rarity, it’s 115 now. It’s not even one -fifth of the total. At the moment, inventory management is definitely one of the worst, most off-putting parts of the game).

A girl can dream, right?

You say that you look at the game data to assess if the balance changes are going in the right direction. Are you looking at more than just the top 2% of most dedicated players? But, are you really?

I’m a very casual player, nowhere near the level of grind/time some people here have put in, though I’ve been with PQ3 almost since the beginning of early release. I’ve got three heroes at 50, the remaining two at 20-ish, I don’t remember citadel level. I can’t beat anything above lvl 65, even with my best gear & best spell set-up, and with the new update, at least from the description and changes to the gear I use & general changes, you just threw my ability to beat even that out of the window. I don’t have the update yet, but from the looks of it, my ONLY survival strategy that worked at all above lvl 50 just became an RNG fest, not a strategy. So, I expect going back to ‘easy/normal’ on everything, bye by to Tier X events, which I’m locked into and can’t change, and bye bye to daily challenges above lvl 50. After so many months. Hopefully only that. Is that encouraging and motivating to keep on playing? Heck no.

I hope you think about your casual players too (you’re about to lose me, too, the way things are going; I wanted to wait for the worldwide release and see then, but it’s not looking promising to me. I’m tired of seeing my only viable strategies thrown out of the window again and again with each set of balance changes, I’m tired of inventory management, I’m tired of the harder enemies killing me off in one swing of their weapon, two at most). I’m in the games to win, not to lose over, and over, and over again. I loved PQ1 and PQ2, you had huge credit at the beginning with PQ3, but… there’s not much of it left.

[Zudaio]

We need more space to play around with sets of gear (recall that since this is a game the concept of play is critical).

Consider a massive bump to inventory space once 50 is reached (gaining the citadel, since a large home made of bricks and such ought to be able to hold quite a bunch of stuff).
Consider puzzle fights to increase the size of each of the inventory kinds in the citadel (mage tower, stables, armory, etc., like from PQ1).
Consider moving some of the wasted inventory space from spells and minions to gear.
Consider kingdom wide citadel improvements in the form of resource sinks (gold, food, ore).
Consider something. We were told ‘change fast and change often’, but it sure looks like inventory space has been asked for every single patch (and kingdom stuff, whose changes have been beyond glacially slow).

[melonfresh]

lol guess who saw this coming

[Avenger]

+1 for more inventory space needed.

I don’t really have much new to add that I and others haven’t said, many times, in many past threads.

5 class (more to be added)
5 colours
15 sets
12 slots

If you want players to try out more builds, particularly as the update changes so many in one go and neglects to cover those in patch notes we need a lot more slots.

Drop rates from chests are awful. It feels so rewarding to open L100 ruby and diamond chests to get a few common items out of them.

Salvage rates are awful. Since we are forced to scrap 99%+ of all items we collect, even getting an Epic feels like a poor reward when it isn’t one you will use since the scrap value is not even enough shards to add a level to another item.

[Mythos]

Inventory space is too small and the result is that it’s impacting the fun of the game while not providing an identifiable fun element
Inventory management is not fun
Being told you can’t process because inventory is full (without a direct link to the offending gear) is not fun
I would rather spend time playing the game (an area where people can spend money) rather than playing gear management (an area where people can not spend money)

As pointed out above, the massive amount of classes, gear slots, sets, colors, traits means this is an issue that will get worse over time

We need a huge amount more storage space, not +5 or +10, like at least double or even x10

It would be great to have it also linked to citadel level or some other food/gold sink so as you progress it gets better

Also, can we have an auto-salvage option for items below a certain level?

[Mythos]

Salvage rates are so bad it is objectively unfair and unreasonable to have to salvage an Epic or higher item due to a nerf (and no storage space so you can’t just keep weak items hanging around) and get a pittance back given the huge resource investment required

There needs to be a “roll back” option for items that have been nerfed that provides back all of the resources used to get the item to that level (e.g. item returns to base level or common and all levelling and evolving resources returned)
I get it’s early access and things can/will change BUT there was a real money shop
Providing a "roll back: option for changed items, that people may have used real money for, would seem fair.
You can’t get a refund but you can recover all resources to use on something else
This would also be a useful tool for future in case of nerf/changes post actual release

[Kafka]

Thanks so much everyone for sharing your thoughts and feedback regarding this! I am reporting the overall inventory space feedback and the specific details from all your feedback for the team to consider.

[shmaunpq]

I have stopped playing except for daily challenges, events and pvp. My gear cap is currently 120 (and I still require 5 Northelm crystals to get it to 140 ) and as of this week all my gear is Epic+. With all the changes I now don’t know what to keep and what to discard. Now every time I get epic gear I have to spend 5 minutes deciding which epic piece of gear to salvage and even then I give up trying to decide and just salvage something I’m not 100% sure I definitely want. I’m crossing my fingers the inventory is increased with the full release of the game.

[Avenger]

The frustrating part is that that position is what new players can look forward to being their max for mostly likely the first 4-6 months, even after completing the story 5 times to unlock all the follower crystals available from there.

Then it’s down to sheer dumb luck that the game decides to give you the chance to win a crystal in the daily challenges (that you can also beat), or one per week from the weekend buy a crystal with gems offer.

[Egara]

Even with 140 its never enough because now one has to decide which epic or legandary gear had to be salvaged. Why legendary? Because attributes dont fit or are waste like Rich!
So actually I am waiting for my next 4 Northelm crystals.
Actually I keep 35 epic and 7 legendary weapons to serve every hero, color and PvP. So there is only few space left for the different color and heroes gear.
What I want to do with more vault space?

1. Try to get gesr with better fitting attributes
2. Gather gear of the different sets and try them in gaming.
   So please give us much more gear vault space!

Other ideas

1. What about gaining vault space by completing tasks?
2. One problem is the random appearance of Northelms crystals. As a possibility you could additionally fix one in the shop as for Eveline.