Is this for real? [St Patric's Day 2022 rewards versus missing inventory slots]

Game Feedback & Ideas
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I logged into the game today and saw an announcement of a new event - with the Lucky Clover Ring as a reward. Four of them, actually:

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Is… is this for real? Tell me, dear devs, HOW am I supposed to take advantage of that, if all my inventory slots are full and I can’t really scrap anything, if I want to take part in elite & restricted tourneys and not cripple my chances there? How? Are we getting a gift of +1 inventory slot with each ring? Because I can’t see it happening in any other way.

Something has to give re: inventory slots. Please. We’ve asked for this so many times and yet hardly anything has been done re: far too small inventory space. This is yet another episode of the same problem that has plagued us since the release of early access. How much longer…?

Signed: a discouraged player.

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Yeap. I was like, neat. Then I thought, aw nuts, I gotta figure out what to salvage.

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You are absolutely right that inventory still needs to be addressed. I wonder though if the end reward is just one ring, with the tier being based on where you finished the event? I guess if you do get 4 rings, likely only one (or two) would be kept based on best option.

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Inventory issues discussed on the forums are 100% an end-game issue. New players don’t need to worry about multiple sets of gear per character class for specific situations.

Betting money is on the devs releasing a second inventory capacity follower in an upcoming Chapter/Season release to address the inventory issues. Cue up a random thesaurus synonym for as many inventory capacity follower names as needed in the future going forward. Gives the players something to chase while giving the devs new follower shard types to monetize and directly sell to the players.

Also, that’s how all the stat nerfs from the end of Early Access are going to eventually recovered.

Lost Power? Hello, Bodybuilder follower.
XP nerf? Sage.
Lost speed from the old Goals system? Athlete/Sprinter.

And so on and so forth. There will be followers for every stat/mastery imaginable, and as many synonyms for those followers as needed as power creep in the future will dictate.

I guess we’ll find out tomorrow, but it will be interesting if there will be elemental color varieties for the ring. Unless the discord bot is incorrect, the event ring is irrelevant for everyone except Shamans (and even then its somewhat questionable…). If the ring can drop in colors other than Green, there’s going to be a certain percentage of players who in four attempts will not be able to roll a Green event ring and end up with a near useless item despite fully clearing the event.

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Your powers of prediction have been questionable in the past so I will take this with a grain of salt.

This is true of numerous current inventory items. An off-color item is not “near useless” as it just results in a lower mastery which results in a small loss of damage and an unnoticeable drop in mana gain.

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I find it odd that the experience for players can be generalized so easily, especially given that the new players I’m familiar with are often anxious about the lack of space they have as they get all their various odds and ends of equipment. I would appreciate fewer sweeping generalizations.

Until there’s some official justification for the lack of gear space, I think it’s fair to complain about it, from our own personal experiences, without trying to extrapolate to everyone else too.

Also, I and the new players that I’ve asked would love more gear space since they (and I) feel that one of the more interesting puzzles in the game is the cobbling together of equipment.

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I recently skipped on buying one of the steam bundles, in part because I have a full inventory (which is causing its own issues as I try to develop a third hero’s gear set)

We need more storage space

What is the point of getting new gear if it will literally cause to you have to play inventory management rather than Puzzle Quest 3?

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I think it is true to say that for end-game players, the inventory issue causes a different set of issues than new players experience as they move through the storyline (and try to level Northelm)

It would seem that a simple fix would be to make Northelm provide a bigger multiplier to storage at each evolution (and each Mythic level)
The linear model does not work well with the gear requirements of end-game which impacts fun (and spending)

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Agreed. This might motivate people to actually invest in the Quest Pass for better chance at Crystals. The ability to monetize something is already there if that really is the end-all-be-all issue.

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How about the word of the series creator and lead director for PQ3 then, Sirrian?

Relevant portion of the video starts at ~46:20 and lasts for about three minutes.

Restrictive gear space is a cornerstone foundation that the whole game is built around. Since the time the video was filmed, Northelm has already had two different boosts to his carrying capacity (25 base slots → 50 base slots) and (1x carrying capacity increase per level → 2x carrying capacity per level). It is unlikely that there will any further boosts to him, given that he has already been buffed twice.

I agree that set building is a interesting part of the game. To that extent, I would also not mind some additional inventory slots. But, as Sirrian states in the video, their goal is to have the right inventory limits at various states of account progression (as they determine, not us as players) to limit/avoid players hoarding gear for rainy days.

I still stand firm that the “in-between solution” that Sirrian alludes to in the video between giving out more inventory spaces for free and directly selling inventory space as a premium benefit is the follower crystal system. Add in a second inventory capacity follower and allow players to either farm their crystals directly in dungeons (albeit at the very slow rate in which they drop) or sell them directly to players via micro-transactions.

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If the justification was a good one, why has inventory been buffed? If one buff was sufficient, why was there a second buff? This idea that the “now” inventory is the correct one and satisfies the “ideal” inventory state is just wrong. Inventory limits are clearly an element of game design but fundamental to that same design is a reasonable expansion of inventory through growth. Currently the max inventory is 150. that’s it. You also have to pay an extreme premium to go for those last 10 spaces. There is no more space. That’s a failure of imagination in design right now. Whatever Sirrian thought nearly a year ago is irrelevant at this point. If it was then we would still be using multiple copies of an item to do upgrades.

The current end state of inventory is unfinished. It costs 35 “resource” (Crystals) to reach 140 inventory spots. It costs 25 “resource” to get 10 more inventory spots. No system design is like that.

EDIT: Actually it’s much worse. It costs 20 “resource” (Crystals) to reach 140 inventory spots. It costs 40 “resource” to get 10 more inventory spots. So it costs 200% more “resource” to get 7% more inventory space. There is no “game theory” for this other than purposefully frustrating players. Whatever design loop was being sought a year ago is not in effect!!

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If playing the bare minimum since the release of early access (really, the bare minimum; I have spent maybe 10-15 minutes daily on the game after the first mad period of playing for a week or two; some days I didn’t play at all, some days I played maybe 20 minutes) means that I’m now at the end game… with 3 heroes at 50 and the other two at 25… and citadel nowhere near the levels I’ve seen mentioned on the forums… then this is one more absurd thing to add to the collection of things wrong here.

I’ve been struggling with inventory slots from day one. This is really not an end-gamer thing. The problem has not appeared today, but we are seeing new and new sides of it. The two Northelm buffs we had simply mean that the players will take a few more weeks to hit the wall. Weeks, not years.

Now we have a special piece of gear dangled in front of our eyes like a carrot, one we might want to have, but we have no slots for. And even if we grind to get there (I wonder how many enemies killed and within how short span of time will be asked of us… ), we might not be able to keep the special piece gear unavailable anywhere else, because, surprise surprise, the inventory is so limited! Forcing us to grind for something we might discard 5 seconds after arriving there after hours of grind - is just insulting to me as a player. Not rewarding.

I already salvage 99% of what I’m getting from chests without even consulting my current inventory - not because the things I already own are so great - probably not, but I want to play puzzle quest, not inventory management, as someone mentioned above. I have no space in my head or time to analyse what I have, what just dropped, if I have the shards to upgrade it versus a piece of gear that is perhaps not perfect but upgraded… This is not fun!

I simply find that inventory design is horribly not in line with other aspects of the game that we have.

  1. Why on earth have 5 classes, when you can have a reliable sets of equipment for 1, maybe 2? What’s the logic here? Can we play them all, or is it something that the devs only pretend that we can play them all, and they are doing everything they can to discourage us from doing so?
  2. Why introduce SET BONUSES, when we are not allowed to collect enough varieties of gear to create them and take advantage of them?
  3. Is this game called Puzzle Quest, or Inventory Management?
  4. Why allow us buy new gear for real-life $$, when again, this will mean salvaging things in inventory - or salvaging the thing we just bought?
  5. Why make us GRIND for a reward that we might ultimately salvage - because it has the wrong color or the wrong affixes? Who thought that will be ever experienced as rewarding? Come on.

I could go on, but I hope you get the idea by now.

If all the above is intended and by design, then there’s some serious flaw in the design of the game, or the design simply spiraled out of control. Both options are not good news for the long-term health of the game.

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Hey, this is feedback we’re still passing on very regularly.

I’m trying to get more information so I can give you something other than “we’ve passed the feedback on”.

I’ll keep everyone updated when I have more.

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Hi, I registered here to say that, as a new player, I’m already deeply frustrated by the limited inventory space. I do not see the logic in encouraging the player to collect items through mechanics such as the construction of item sets, and through the interface suggestion of saving multiple gear loadouts across multiple characters, while simultaneously imposing a draconian limit on the amount of items one can actually store.

I have purchased permanent inventory expansions in other free-to-play games and would do so here if the game offered the option. As it stands I’m likelier to simply stop playing entirely.

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One more new player that wanted to give some feedback about the discussed inventory limitations. Given that there are item sets in the game and we have access to creating and playing all the classes from the same account with a shared inventory it seemed obvious that you would want to work on collecting different item set combinations for all the classes. Having quickly realized how limited inventory space is I have given up on the idea for now to play more than one class. At first I thought I could get around the problem by equipping the gear I wanted on the other classes, but alas, the items take up inventory space even while equipped. To play several classes early the limited inventory space seems to force the player to choose a generic item set to use on most classes. It isn’t appealing and I see no reason why the game developer would try to force the player into unattractive play styles if they havn’t really even monetized adding extra inventory space. In conclusion it just seems like a really bad design choice that only detracts from the gaming experience without any workarounds for no obvious reason. Why offer the possibility to play all the classes if the inventory space restricts the player from actually trying to collect and use the various item sets in the game to the strengths of each class?

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Perhaps equipped items not counting towards inventory storage space, in conjunction with more storage space (say in the citadel - food/gold sink) would be a scalable solution (as more heroes are added)

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That would only be a band-aid. How many extra gear slots we can get in this way? 12 per class, so 60 at most (one loadout each - I seriously doubt we would be allowed 8 per class, that would add up to 480…), and any purchasing at the citadel would possibly be cost-prohibitive beyond a certain point for an average player. So, let’s say +60 on the top of the current 140/150. But… this still does not make sense and it would only be a short-term solution - after a few weeks players will again hit that wall. Again and again. Like we did throughout the entire early access stage.

The game is clearly set up in a way that it requires of us to have multiple sets, of multiple types of gear, and the new COLLECTIBLE ring from the special event only proves that. Yet we are restricted in the number of individual pieces of gear we can actually holds. This just doesn’t make any sense. If the gear is to be a collectible - like the rings we now have in the special event, we can’t be limited in the number of gear pieces we can hold. Or, if the game has to have limited gear space, then the gear needs to be fungible and easy to upgrade, and just as easy to discard if no longer needed. This is not the case here (constant shortage of shards, lots of different shards needed to upgrade one thing from 1 to 25-35-45, lots of gold needed to upgrade one thing - and there’s a cap on gold! A ring at lvl 1 and a ring at lvl 35, not to mention 45, are two totally different rings - this is not a thing that is easy to discard after dedicating that much resources).

Dear Devs, you can’t eat cake and have cake. It looks like two design styles clashed and we have some botched result in front of our eyes.

Let me repeat my calculations from another thread about the very same thing:

  • 11 different types of gear (1. weapon 2. shoulders 3. body 4. helm 5. gloves 6. pants 7. boots 8. shield 9. necklace 10. belt 11 (& 12.) ring - two slots for rings).
  • 5 elements (red, yellow green blue, purple)
  • 15 types of each (Warlord, Bloodfang, Bone, Dragonguard, Dwarven, Elven, Esgaard, Firewalker, Guard, Jeweled, Night, Royal, Runic, Savior, Serpentine)

If we assume that we are happy to have 2 different rings equipped, without the need for a duplicate ring of the same color, then we can count 11 types of gear.

That is: 11 x 5 x 15 = 825

If we assume we want duplicates of rings,
then: 12 x 5 x 15 = 900

And yet we get 150 slots, if we have Northelm at absolute max. Most people have him lower. Mine is at 140 and I don’t see any way I can go up to even 141 anytime soon.

150 out of 900 = 16.7%. 150 out of 825 = 18.1%.
140 out of 900 = 15.5% 140 out of 825 = 16.9%.

Not even 20% of all options. That’s why I say that the current inventory limits allow us to have a good set for 1 hero, maybe 2. 3 is near impossible. And more classes are coming, at least that was teased so many times.

Now, another layer to gear are the affixes. I haven’t yet counted how many different ones there are, but as each piece can have up to 4, the number of combinations is staggering. I don’t say we should own them all, but at least we should have a choice, or a place to store a piece that has better affixes - before we can upgrade it and discard the previous one.

Logic in the game design in this aspect has left the building! Perhaps we should organize a quest to find it?

I believe we should have at least 825 slots + any extra collectible gear from event should come with its own +1 slot, + a few extra back-ups, for, dunno, an extra Bone Ring or Runic Ring in the same color for a one-color loadout. 850-900 in total. At least.

Or, if we really need to grow our inventor slowly, then each class should have its own number of inventory pieces. A player unlocks a new class and levels it to 50 - the player get 165 or 180 slots (825/5 = 165 or 900/5 = 180 per class at this moment in time). Remember - there are new classes coming - we will need relevant sets of gear for them too. + any extra slots for collectibles, like the current ring in the St Patrick’s event that had me start this thread at all.

I’m beginning to lose any hope that anything will be done about it in any meaningful way, after months and months of asking for the same thing. (No, the previous two buffs to Northelm were not meaningful, at least not to me - these were again band-aid solutions.)

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