One month of testing 2x storage and why there is no reason it shouldn't be a permanent feature

Early Access Archive Early Access Game Feedback
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As of version 0.35, among the way too numerous things the version broke, one of them is there is no storage cap anymore for gear, spells, nor minions.

This gave the opportunity over the last month or so to test this thread from a while back: Northelm (Guard Follower) Needs at LEAST 2x More Gear Storage Growth

This topic is mostly on gear. While spells and pet storage is low, they don’t need nearly as much as gear will ever need.

Since 0.35, I have been keeping my storage below 150, which is 2x current max storage. Despite this, I am still salvaging around 98% of all drops obtained.

Gear currently has the following number of items MINIMUM to do 1 of everything that is needed within the game. These include:

  • 1 equipment in every slot for resource bonuses (12)
  • 1 of every uncommon weapon for dungeons and pvp (15)
  • 1 of the rest of the slots in uncommon for pvp (11)
  • 5 sets of full color equipment for pvp (60)

Other not required but generally desired things include:

  • 1 of every equipment item in the game (75 not counting weapons)
  • 1 of every weapon in every color for cosmetic purposes (75)

The first list of MINIMUM things to even play the game properly already exceeds the current cap. Adding completionist stuff and even a 2x higher storage would NOT be enough storage for it.

Having experienced 2x storage for a month, the ONLY thing I had enough storage to fully do from those above lists is to have all 15 weapons in uncommon, mostly because those dictate honor and gems per week.

Despite having 2x storage, I still haven’t gotten a single full set of any piece of equipment in correct color.

When storage is reverted back to non infinite with any coinciding buff to storage, the first thing to take a hit would be all the weapons. Basically every rare and epic weapon would have to be scrapped to make room for uncommons, because for whatever reason uncommons are the strongest weapon type in the game.

It has been evident since only a few weeks into the game that the storage limit for the game is at minimum 2x too short, especially for a game planning on being a live service that lasts for years. The current storage system doesn’t even support the current game with the current amount of content, with it only going to get worst over time.

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Agree

Also, inventory management is just NOT FUN.
It can (perhaps should) be a small part of gameplay but right not it impact/interaction is way too high.
Regardless of the maximum cap, I will get trained to salvage basically everything at some point, how about more of the fun stuff (and less inventory management) up front?

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Wait… what? My storage has a cap. Please explain this.

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Just don’t open keys.

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If I understand this method correctly (I don’t currently employ it), you limit your opening of chests to minion-opened chests (no key use). However, this would also restrict your use of any gear crafter as well.

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Just to be sure I’m following this right…
Are you saying that opening a chest with a minion will successfully over load your inventory? Indefinitely? A comparison I can think of is how you can buy food, gold etc, over your cap with honor. But you cannot collect over your cap from followers. So you can collect over your cap from a minion chest, but not from a key chest?

Ironically, I did this by accident yesterday.

My other question would be how do you play then? Like is this a strategy that should be ignored if you are still grinding a hero or two through the story?

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Yes

I would agree that this approach is favored by players who are at upper end of the progression spectrum (chest rewards on your 4th/5th playthroughs are marginal at best and often a waste of keys compared to using them later on chests as more updates come in, like say when there is another use for food)

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Hey Tacet, why do you say that uncommons are the strongest weapon type in the game ?

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Uncommons allow you to compete in the Restricted and Elite Tourneys as they are considered colorless and a weapon has to be equipped.

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That I know. Still that does NOT make it the strongest, per se. Let’s see if what Tacet meant was also the same …

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With how weapons are balanced, very few of their effects make much of a difference. Having uncommon in a weapon reduces the need of 5 other other weapons, which leaves more inventory for other gear, which in result makes the character stronger. 15 uncommon weapons is 60 storage that is now useable compared to before. That is nearly the entire current limit.

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Ok, I get the point.

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I definitely agree that increasing Northelm’s gear bonus to 2x is a great solution here. As was mentioned on a dev stream, one of the reasons the gear limit exists is to teach newer players to salvage gear, keeping the income of shards at the expected levels.

By increasing Northelm’s base value, you don’t make any impact on experienced players (only having 10 additional slots won’t help you) and, by the above reasoning, hurt newer players (new players will have a tendancy to hoard weapons).

If you instead increase the amount of slots given by levels to Northelm, you put very little impact on the inventory of newer players (forcing them to salvage unused commons) while making it reasonable for experienced players to attempt to collect sets and weapons for PvP.

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Also, while the devs based on last stream don’t seem to believe so, 2x storage in the current state of the game is the MINIMUM the game needs. It shouldn’t really even be a question that the game needs 2x.

The real issue is even when the game gets 2x more storage, that STILL is not enough storage for the game if it is planning on going for years upon years. The real discussion should be how much more than 2x is the right spot. Most rest of the storage that isn’t a 2x increase to Northelm could easily just be put at end game so that it doesn’t effect people progressing through the game.

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I couldn’t agree more. Sirrian said that the main reason the cap exists is to acclimate the player to the idea of salvaging as a game mechanic. As @Tacet and others have demonstrated repeatedly, even at 2x gear storage that motivation would still exist. If anything, the better way to acclimate and even incentivize the player to salvage (beyond the existing salvage returns) is to create a “Salvage Reward Track” similar to the Dungeons or Enemies rewards track. This would clue the player into the idea that they should be expecting to salvage a lot and additionally would provide a small benefit, perhaps a modest key-find percent to minions, that would go a lot farther in encouraging salvage as a behavior.

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Or just make the salvage reward track system yield extra storage. Pretty much a 5th category to the achievement section that yields 1 storage per task completed.

Things like salvage X commons, salvage X rares, salvage X total, salvage something of at least level X, and similar things.

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We have been discussing gear storage internally for some time, and are looking into ways to icnrease it while still helping newer players enter the salvage cycle. I don’t know when we will see anything regarding it in game, but it has been brought up and discussed by the designers.

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