Two suggestions for future progress on game

[Blaze11572]

I am relatively new to this game, picked it up a few weeks ago and have been playing religiously to learn more about it. After a few solo plays and a few games with a friend, I have two suggestions that would improve the game progression through development.

First suggestion:

Change when you can craft a crucible. Either through improving the drop rate, or sell rate of the crucible and/or schematic or by adjusting the engineering perk.

Why:

It seems silly to me that by the time you're able to craft a crucible you can forge steel with over 40% less materials but can't actually do that without level 5 engineering perk. Only in one playthrough have I been able to get one due to a random schematic drop. It seems that by the time you can level enough to craft one, half of the tools you have from looting are already better than what you can craft out of steel, especially if you invest that much into intellect. I have also only seen a crucible at the trader one time thus far for 5000 coins. This could just be me looting the wrong places but every playthrough I've had so far has been limited by the crucible in one way or another.

Second suggestion:

Have the Pack Mule perk add to your total inventory slots instead of adding slots to reduce the encumberment amount.

Why:

In a current playthrough I've been doing I bought the double storage mod schematic on day 3 and had almost full access to the entire inventory already. After finding two triple storage mods, I am limited by 4 inventory spaces for encumberment without a single point in pack mule, thus making the perk seem completely irrelevant. Every perk should feel like some benefit if for nothing else but the internal debate of what to invest levels into, and pack mule can be made completely irrelevant with one schematic.

These could just be random occurrences for me personally, but have been my only main points of feedback so far. Otherwise I am enjoying the game.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

First suggestion:

That sounds pretty much like 7d2d and for me this is an essential part of the game.

In my most playthrough we found either a cruicible itself or a schematic sooner or later. That also applies to many other stuff. In other playthroughs we (i only play multiplayer in small groups) were able to craft a 4x4 before we were able to craft a minibike, in some other we got minibikes within the first week. In earlier alphas it took ages until we found a hoe for gardening. That's what makes every playthrough different. And yes, most times we found better tools before we were able to craft good steel tools, so it turns out that we didn't need a crucible that soon anyway. More or less it's needed later for mass production of steel, e.g for crafting a 4x4. Once you have found a good tool, you can use it forever with repairkits. So there is not much to craft regarding only tools.

Sometimes we have bad luck and don't find what we need in time. Then someone starts to invest skill points for that. Usually the RNG-God is somehow angry with us and as soon as any player invested the skillpoints we find the skillbook or an item very soon after that.

Second:

You can maxout your inventory space by using storage mods early. You can be happy with that and use the skillpoints in other ways. Later in game you may not to waste your modslots for storage mods, so you need (at least some skillpoints in) pack mule again. I usually don't even max out the inventory. Being 1 or 2 slots overloaded ist not a big deal. Also the size of the inventory is a reasonable aspect of the game. You can't carry everything and so either need to haul stuff around multiple times, or drop less important stuff. And you can still use other workarounds, like build a storage chest infront of the building you are looting and drop your loot in there. You have to run out sometimes, but so don't need to drop much and it improves the storage usage by optimal stacking of items.

If you want a bigger inventory, there are dozens of mods out there that do that. But i don't know how each of them handles encumberment. I assume/expect, unencumbered slots are still the same, so you may need pack mule AND some storage mods to make it fully usable without getting overloaded.

 

[FileMachete]

Have the Pack Mule perk add to your total inventory slots instead of adding slots to reduce the encumberment amount.

Back pack space has always been quite limited in 7dtd. Seems to be a decision from the Top, from my reading anyway.

Mentioning it for background/history, and why you won't see many posts about it. Those that prefer more space (like me), can use one of several mods to increase slots.

However. The Pack Mule Perk can have use later on, when you have Tier 5 or 6 armor & enough Mods to fill the 3 or 4 slots. It is a bit of a honeypot in early game though; hard to resist but there are much more useful things to buy.

Can seem backward to wait until lvl 50+ before buying any Pack Mule, but my experiance is that as the zeds get tougher, and more are running, you find yourself wanting your armor to be better at taking a hit & at being quieter. So those triple-pocket mods wind up taking space better used by Muffled Connections & armor ups.

Just my ,02 cents of course

Oh, and just in case you haven't run across them, there are both single & double pocket add-ons for the clothes (pants shirt jacket) pieces as well.

Edit: nice @Liesel Weppen, great minds think alike! :classic_biggrin:

 

[Blaze11572]

If you want a bigger inventory, there are dozens of mods out there that do that. But i don't know how each of them handles encumberment.

I guess just from being relatively new to the game I thought of steel as the natural progression path after iron. Getting an iron tool makes you want a steel tool, and working with a level one steel shovel you found makes you want to craft a better one, but it's essentially up to rng or hard investments to actually get to that. I mean I've been buying forged steel when I feel I can in some playthroughs, but the steel system in general feels very limited and it is bottlenecked by one item. 

Also I actually love the inventory system as is, it makes the game so much more fun worrying about what you can bring home, what you have to leave and mark on the map to come back sometime later, only to realize everything you stored away is useless when you get there. It just feels like every perk has its place in a playthrough, but I've noticed more and more that pack mule really doesn't matter much at all until late game. Between steroids and the mods you don't even worry about that perk which is nice because I can go heavy into others without much regret, but that's why I feel like it's not good as is.

I like the internal monologue of reading perks and deciding which I should get next level, by focusing on a few you already eliminate half of them, but pack mule is essentially useless up until you're decked out on equipment and it doesn't matter much then anyway. I think having 4 additional total slots for use would be useful throughout the entire game and leave someone thinking about if it's worth it. I will probably never invest a point into it again for a while, but just my general thoughts so far on the only two things that bothered me a bit.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

I still haven't found out how to split quotes in the new forum, so i try to answer without.

Steel IS the natural progression of iron. But an essential part of the game is to deal with what you have and make it with this stuff instead of wishing to get something you will probably not find soon. In the progress of the game it might be even better to use iron instead of steel, as steel tools draw more stamina and if you don't have enough stamina regen, you will be even more efficient with just an iron tool. And if you race for steel tools that hard, learn the skills. You are free to decide whether you want steel tools that urgent or better invest your skillpoints into something else but stay with your lvl2 steel pickaxe. That's one decision that makes the game interesting. You can also try both styles in different playthroughs. Same applies to storage mods, it's the same decision. If you think storage mods are fine, use them and save the skillpoints for pack mule. You can't skill everything anyway, so you need to decide what you want to skill anyway.

Because you are new to the game you might think everything is very important. But as you said, coming back to fetch items often turns out, there are only items left you don't need anyway. Now that's about efficient playstyle and that just comes with experience. I don't mean XP in leveling, but experience on how to play the game. That also depends on your playstyle. And also on what stage your game is currently.

I recently tried a "nomad" play... no selfbuilt base, just using POIs and move on at least after 7 days (or 2 bloodmoons, we play with completely random bloodmoons). Only that playstyle moves your decision what items you keep when COMPLETELY. 

Most times when we go looting and finally come to the point where we need to decide what to carry home (or at this playthrough move the "base" to a new location), we realize that we even don't really need that much and finally fill up our inventories just with "nice to have" things.

So yes, it might look hard to leave e.g. honey behind. But when moving on, we see we have collected 3 further stacks anyway and just needed 3 or 4 of them. In the end you most likely have dozens of stacks of items you will never need, but instead of save inventory space you continue to collect them and maybe even advance the storage of your base, because your chests are all running full.

I don't see the point in having 4 slots more. If you finally get 4 slots more, you will just wish for another 4 slots more. What about having 4 slots less? And why not even have 9 slots more (which would at least be a complete row)? And you can use your bicycle/minibike/motorcycle/4x4 storage additionally. Having/Getting them is not only a matter of moving faster, it's also a point of the storage they provide.

In my current playthrough with 2 players, we couldn't even craft a second bicycle in week 3, because we hadn't found a receipe for the handlebars and just found one handlebar item yet. And suddenly we found everything needed for 2 minibikes (without anybody skilled for it).

As said, if inventory space bothers you that much, just mod your game. Try it out. Maybe you like it. I tried it and soon realized, it took a lot of the game away, because you need to make far less decisions, because you can carry that much anyway.