Tool wheel

[El Wrobel]

It would be very good to have a tool wheel that would give you a selection of all the tools from your inventory. Either this or just being able to equip tools straight from your/container inventory. Right now, the tool/favourite/inventory juggle is just tedious if you're doing a lot of things in your estate.

[pdoan8]

Tool wheel sounds great, but I doubt it would happen. Weight is the limit. Not everyone will play with unlimited carry weight.

Currently, you can assign 8 tools to quick slots. That is a lot of weight if you also carry backup and other stuffs. So, if it is on you, you can quickly swap it most of the time.

My usual quick slots: axe, bow, knife, hammer, shovel, pickaxe, hoe, bag. That leaves a few limited use items which I can swap when needed: crossbow (only needed for moose, wisent, bear), scythe/sickle (seasonal), spear (not use once I can craft a bow). Assuming that I would carry all iron tool (longbow and scythe), that's about 27kg. Plus: a shearing scissors which can be used straight from inventory, arrows and bolts, a waterskin, some food, torch, some clothes, ... That's why I'm still playing with unlimited carry weight.

[El Wrobel]

I also switched to unlimited as it was just too annoying. Not only did I have to reassign stuff all the time, but also run around to pick it up. I don't weight would be an issue here, honestly I don't see any downside to having it pull up all the tools you're carrying instead of assiging it manually like it is now. Besides, you could have both system at the same time so you could assign weapons to the usual hotkeys.

[Maya-Neko]

Originally posted by pdoan8:

Tool wheel sounds great, but I doubt it would happen. Weight is the limit. Not everyone will play with unlimited carry weight.

Currently, you can assign 8 tools to quick slots. That is a lot of weight if you also carry backup and other stuffs. So, if it is on you, you can quickly swap it most of the time.

Weight isn't a reason to not include QoL features. the biggest problem i see with the current system is, that it is just tedious for no aparent reason other than "was always that way".

For startest a wheel is definitely faster than going into the menu, searching for a specific item in a long list and then drag it over to the slot you want. That takes like 10 times as long as just holding a button and picking the tool you want.

Also i don't see a reason for constantly deleting the assignment, when the last tool got destroyed. Again, a wheel could easily contain all tools, even if they're not in the inventory, maybe even with a shortcut to automatically build one, if there's none in the inventory.

And for those, who still want to do it the tedious way, it could easily coexist with the tool bar.

[pdoan8]

I don't see how assigning tool to quick slots would take anyone 10 minutes.
- The tool/weapon tab is not very long. Even with dozens of types and conditions.
- It only need to be done once for most tool/weapon. If I carry back up of the same type and material, the tool will be replaced automatically until the last one break. Then I have to drag another made of a different material into the slot.
- In early game, I craft some tool/weapon and weapon for sale and I carry them with me. However, I prefer to use the tool that I pick up. Later, I might have tool/weapon made from different material, but I prefer to keep the best for me (in the slot). Also, there some job I would delegate to my villagers, so I do not need some tools.

If it were the wheel:
- There are 13 tool and weapon: axe (4), bag (2), bow (3), crossbow (2), fishing spear (1), hammer (4), hoe (4), knife (4), pickaxe (4), scythe (3), shovel (4), sickle (4), spear (5). Not sure if I got all tool/weapon and count the correct number of material they are made from.
- If a player only want to use tool/weapon made from a certain material, should the "wheel" also have different slot for different material? If not, how would the "wheel" select the correct tool/weapon?
- For bow (and sickle/scythe): Should the "wheel" has one slot for each? Bow, recurve bow, long bow, sickle, scythe.
- How about arrow (4), and bolt (4)? Not counting poisoned arrow and bolt.

Edit:
Usage:
- Wheel: one keystroke to bring up the wheel, mouse around, and one click to select a tool/weapon. Imagining you trying to equip a bow while a wolf is charging.

- Slot: it is true that it takes more time to set up, but it only takes one keystroke to equip a tool/weapon.

Edit 2: tool wheel is only useful for players who use controller. This could be implemented as alternate control setting.

[El Wrobel]

Originally posted by pdoan8:

I don't see how assigning tool to quick slots would take anyone 10 minutes.
- The tool/weapon tab is not very long. Even with dozens of types and conditions.
- It only need to be done once for most tool/weapon. If I carry back up of the same type and material, the tool will be replaced automatically until the last one break. Then I have to drag another made of a different material into the slot.
- In early game, I craft some tool/weapon and weapon for sale and I carry them with me. However, I prefer to use the tool that I pick up. Later, I might have tool/weapon made from different material, but I prefer to keep the best for me (in the slot). Also, there some job I would delegate to my villagers, so I do not need some tools.

If it were the wheel:
- There are 13 tool and weapon: axe (4), bag (2), bow (3), crossbow (2), fishing spear (1), hammer (4), hoe (4), knife (4), pickaxe (4), scythe (3), shovel (4), sickle (4), spear (5). Not sure if I got all tool/weapon and count the correct number of material they are made from.
- If a player only want to use tool/weapon made from a certain material, should the "wheel" also have different slot for different material? If not, how would the "wheel" select the correct tool/weapon?
- For bow (and sickle/scythe): Should the "wheel" has one slot for each? Bow, recurve bow, long bow, sickle, scythe.
- How about arrow (4), and bolt (4)? Not counting poisoned arrow and bolt.

Edit:
Usage:
- Wheel: one keystroke to bring up the wheel, mouse around, and one click to select a tool/weapon. Imagining you trying to equip a bow while a wolf is charging.

- Slot: it is true that it takes more time to set up, but it only takes one keystroke to equip a tool/weapon.

Edit 2: tool wheel is only useful for players who use controller. This could be implemented as alternate control setting.

And i am using both a controller and keyboard and mouse, I fail to see how implementing this wouldn't be benficial for KB+M users. If a player wants to use a a weaker tool, they can hotkey it specifically, wheel should always select the strongest option. This extends to bows as well and sickle/scythe. I assume recurve is the most powerful and scythe is more resilient than a sickle.

As for arrows, I bows could extend the wheel/show another wheel when selected/moused over to show available ammo types.

[pdoan8]

Do you think wheel plus mouse click would be over complicated? Again, quick slot take one keystroke for M&K. Controller will take ~3 actions (one button to bring up the quick slot, joystick to the item, one button to select). It would probably take the same amount of actions for the wheel using a controller. It might be useful as an optional control scheme for controller users, but I do not see it benefit M&K users. As M&K user, quick slot is always quicker and easier. So, why does the game need redundancy control (quick slot + wheel)? Why spend the time and resources to create something that makes very little to no improvement for some players? Considering that many players play with carrying weight limit and most don't even fill up their quick slots. Some might not even have back up. What in it for them?

If many players would play with unlimited weight and carry dozens of tools/weapon with them, then the Devs would need to create another GUI to define tool/weapon use order so players can tell the game which to use next or not to use in the inventory.

As for arrows, I bows could extend the wheel/show another wheel when selected/moused over to show available ammo types.

There are 4 type of arrow, 4 type of bolt, and their poisoned variety. Two layer wheel would be a bit clunky. One layer wheel would be a bit too crampy (look at the roasting meat menu). That is just for an occasionally use action. Moreover, does any one really carry all of the variety (other than to sell)?

I don't see me carry all of them and need to switch them often. But, that is just me. Is it better as it is now? Or do we really need a wheel? (Note: I could use an extra slot so I can equip both arrow and bolt, but I don't use crossbow as often).