So does this game actually need more than 4 inventory slots?

[404_Not_Found]

I just got done watching Super Bunnyhop's review of the game and, well, I personally think it's not a very good review because it's coming from the perspective of someone who can't understand the appeal of an entire genre and gives a game in that genre a luke warm recommendation because they assumed the game failed when they simply misunderstood the point but ANYWAY...

The two issues he brought up that I actually can respect were that, at the time he played it (after it went 1.0) were, the game didn't have a map screen which has since been fixed, and the game lacked inventory space.

As someone who's played the game pretty much since the outset (0.1), I remember a time when four slots wasn't a major issue. There was a lot less to deal with back then and it felt balanced.

But around the time the ruins came out was when I also started taking some issue with the limited space. I think the warp tech part of the lab was supposed to remedy this, or at least offer a middle ground, but their relative expense makes it difficult for me to really believe these are anything other than endgame investments, at which point why would you need them in the first place?

Having said that, I still do not really know if the game needs more slots, or slot upgrades. I would like to put forth my thoughts about the way people are likely playing the game VS the community worked out optimal way of playing as a kickstart for discussion about it though, so, here's what I think.

The average adventurer - and let's assume this is someone who's played zelda, minecraft, all the popular games, maybe even some don't starve, some roguelikes, some harvest moon, some pikmin, etc - will probably look at adventuring in this game, after getting familiar with the ranching VS ranging aspects, like this:

-Make sure slimes have ample food before leaving
-Free up inventory space
-Purchase all available upgrades

This is generally how most of us experienced players do things as well, but things start to diverge a little when we actually get to a new area.

New players

-Get bearings in new area
-Look for new resources
-Hoard the crap out of anything new
-Also make sure you bring fruit and meat along so you can deal with largos you might stumble into
-Save up on slime keys for new area
-Make sure water tank is full

Experienced players

-Get bearings in new area
-Look for the locations of new resources
-Figure out one task you want to complete, your first visit to new areas is strictl recon
-Mark the locations of largos for later, only attemot tp feed one largo per trip
-Make opening treasure pods separate from any other resource gathering trip
-First priority is always finding teleporters

The difference in new player and experienced players boiling down to: new players attempt to do everything they can in a new area at their own pace, experienced players know how to chop up tasks.

But I don't actually think the 'experienced' way of doing things is necessarily the right way. Sure, it speaks to the time-management aspect of the game where you repeatedly shift between exploring a new place and taking care of your ranch, and you can argue that stardew valley and harvest moon also have tasks broken into chunks - if you want to mine in SV you devote a day to it, devote a day to fishing, some days are for festivals, etc. when all your chores are complete - but those games have a different structure entirely whereas slime rancher is a lot more like minecraft which has almost no structure to it. Minecraft is a game where you do hoard new resources and try to come home with as much as you can carry, the idea being if you die you lose everything in your inventory. (God help you if you die in lava.) The overall structure of slime rancher would obviously lead new players to default to this.

However, my own counter to that is, having a game that's more about bite-sized expeditions is perfectly valid, even if it feels unnatural to people just getting started, because the system can be worked around with careful planning just like any harvest moon style game.

But, having said THAT, the issue then becomes an issue ot time between preparation VS execution. In all HM games (including SV) I am familiar with, the actual preparation part is just you completing your chores for the day, and you have chores on the ranch in SR as well, but you also need to make sure your slimes have enough to last while you're gone whereas in HM games, you just need to ensure you have enough time left in your day. The clock makes your hours for you in HM, in SR you make your own time and that means more prep work. Just for me to get to the glass desert took a good 4 hours alone to recover from being away from my ranch for 5 days while I wandered the ruins looking for that one boom largo I knew was there but didn't know where. This is also another issue: you don't really have to find your way around in HM games, even the mines in SV are relatively straightforward. In SR, the game can be a maze and this can lead to a frustrating clash of priorities between wanting to explore and wanting to have slimes.

And this factors into the inventory system in a basic way: You have to prioritize, even around your own ranch, the best route to take to ensure that you're emptying your corrals, filling food dispensers, and collecting from machines, in just the right way such that you'll always pass by the market or the refinery or some other dropoff point, which is a fine game mechanic...until you have so much going on that even one inventory slot would make it feel less like you were taking extra detours just to compensate for 'not enough space'. I am not saying we need a minecraft inventory screen or anything, but that the addition of one or two extra slots in the form of upgrades could reduce the number of routes made on an average ranching binge from 20-25 to 10-15, and thus relieve some frustrations that arise late-game when you have almost every known species of slime and almost every kind of food growing with machines scattered all over the map, and people like me might only spent 2-3 hours instead of 4-5 hours on our ranch during a stream when we just wanted to go 'splorin! WHY DO I HAVE RESPONSIBILITIES? I JUST WANNA ADVENTURE! D:

BUT, again, the game is called slime rancher, not slime ranger. (I would totally play a slime ranger game though, side-note.) So obviously the focus being ranching makes a whole lot of sense and that takes priority over traipsing across the range looking for adventure. There are also valid ways to play the game without even ranching and choosing to have all those responsibilities is ultimately our decision. You could also argue my personal complaint was me trying to have my cake and eat it too, although I still think the point about time spent just making circuits around the ranch is at least worth discussion.

There is also, like I said, a point to be made about warp tech and whether or not it's too expensive or too late-game to be useful. I'm personally on the side that it is, but I think the open-ended nature of map exploration means that issue might have a lot of varied opinions on it.

Anyway, these are all just my thoughts, curious to know what everyone else thinks.

[Ǵ̶͓̂͑lí̴̤̀̄́tcĥ̸]

There were, and still are (though a little less often now with warp tech) times I wish I had at least a 5th slot, I will definitely say that - even just running around doing regular ranch tasks I find myself wishing for it. Any more than that might be unnecessary though.

Warp Tech is ... well, it kind of depends. You can get it relatively fast, and with things like Gilded Ginger being added for a reason to go back to the desert (Gold Gordo baby), and some more future stuff involving another giant warp gate, it makes having teleporters very nice, especially now that day cycles have dramatically increased in speed. Do I absolutely need them, especially now that my ranch is basically complete (minus some decour)? Well, probably not - but for the occasional time I might need some science resources or something (usually for decorations) from a place that I'd have to run a ways to otherwise, I'm certainly glad I have them. Even having one leading between the docks and the ranch house can cut a lot of time out of some back and forth runs. So...the convenience is very nice even late game.

[Jackal]

tldr

[Honorable_D]

I'd really like a fifth slot. Maybe some mid to end game quest/secret/craftable that you really have to work for, but of course, the payoff will be huge!

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Escrito originalmente por Honorable_D:

I'd really like a fifth slot. Maybe some mid to end game quest/secret/craftable that you really have to work for, but of course, the payoff will be huge!

I didn't even consider at what point the upgrade would unlock or how, I think this is probably a good point though.

It might also be worth discussing when we each individually experience a point where we start to really feel like we might need a fifth slot. For me personally, it was around the ruins that it became less of a fanciful wish and more of a real gripe that I just sort of live with. There became too many things for me to worry about ferrying around the map at that point from slime science resources to treasure pods to all the basic things, plus the echoes in the ruins that I had to start planning specific trips for.

Also, on the topic of various resources, and I've seen this idea show up before, but: How does everyone feel about having separate hotbars instead of just one more inventory slot? Basically, something you can switch between just by hitting one of the number keys or C and V on the keyboard respectively? Either having one for slimes/plorts, one for food, and one for resources, or being able to assign 3 differently does create more a minecraft-like playstyle where you only have access to what's on your hotbar at that time, but minecraft as a game was balanced around this and I am not personally sure if SR really would work with it. It would create some convenience, but possibly get rid of the circuit planning that does make up part of the game's offered strategy which I do think needs to exist - even if it needs to be made a little lesser by giving us more space somehow.

[Ǵ̶͓̂͑lí̴̤̀̄́tcĥ̸]

Probably the echoes for me as well. I had to have them for my grotto so that took a couple trips. Same with science stuff lately. I often have to leave the common stuff behind to grab later in order to get the area-specific resources back to the ranch.

One thing I would like is the ability to carry the same item in another slot. If I fill slot 1 with 100 plorts but there's 100 more, I'd like to be able to put those into slot 2.

[GmanLives]

Escrito originalmente por 404_Not_Found:

I just got done watching Super Bunnyhop's review of the game

This is where you ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up.

[Grimmrog_SIG]

It is alway annyoing not havign enough room when you explore and find some thinsg you wanna keep but can't due to the space restrictions. But I guess this is kinda of ressoruce management.
Its annoying during those tiems you explore new areas and not having teleporters then you collect new slimes you don't have and suddenly come across a gordo. This kinda forces you to go bakc tot he farm and return (which can be a long trip). And the worst case is when then the chcikens you need were all eaten by the slimes and you returned and can't feed them. I guess thats just a thing of some inconvinience.
Maybe a mixed container as 5 would be cool which kinda needs to selected and this container cna store up to 50 random items but you need to deal with the fac that you cannot select dedicated things in this container to shoot, instead it will randomly throw them out.

This is especially a thing in the desert when you suddenly meet 4 new slimes and the new carrots and chicken there and waling into the desert is quite some trip.
Maybe if we could shoot things into portals and they appear on the other side, that would be cool.

[Magical Purple Man]

I think it's an issue that's gets less of an issue the more you've played and know exactly what you need, what you're gonna take back and all that stuff, especially when you get the 100 slot upgrade and get access to your own teleporters (the free strange diamond they now give you behind the lab helps get you started on those), though occasionally a golden slime will pop out or something akin to that and it'll put a wrench in your plans, that being said I would quite like to be able to swap out maybe the water slot for an extra slot atleast or something.

Going out to get the echos out in particular is a pain because then you're left with no room to carry anything.

Personally not a gamebreaker or really that big a negative for me but I can fully see why people get frustrated with the limit.

[Lodrelhai]

Lesson from MMOs that has carried over into every other game with inventory I have ever played - you never have enough inventory slots. They would need to give us a slot for every possible thing we can carry in the game, and we would still be frustrated because we can't use two slots for the same item if the first one gets filled.

That said, I HIGHLY recommend making the refinery link and the market link ASAP. Those are the warp tech that will really ease inventory issues. Unlike other warp tech, these two can be picked up as often as you like, so one of each is all you need. Rather than run back and forth from the market board, send the plorts to the market from right next to the corral. Resources from treasure pods or extractors are out of your inventory in seconds, and you keep right on going. Food and slimes become the only continued headaches, and those are much easier to manage.

I'm actually planning to try a "Slime Ranger" run, see if I can manage getting most - or even all -
of my plorts from the wild. It'll be slower going, but I'm pretty sure it's doable. (Well, except I'll need incinerators if I want fire plorts.) That'll really be where inventory issues show up!

[Dracina Dragonfire]

The times I started wishing for more slots was when I started finding slime science in treasure pods and in gordo crates and whatnot. I didn't want to leave behind my find but often had to in order to finish my explorations. Echos would be a problem too but I'm not really into them....

[Zatachi]

I would kill for 1 or 2 slots more. :)
The 4 we have is nice at the beginning and yes, managing the inventory is kind of the game buuuut if you need a day just to do your farming (and then start again cause they plort more) it becomes tedious and less fun.

This game is first and foremost a game to relax, it has no fixed goal and you can explore and watch slimes.
Its not that relaxing to think and think and rethink and then leave something behind anyway.

Maybe a mid-tier (opening all farm expansions, collected alls slimes or so) upgrade would be fine.

[Whodicea]

I'd like it as a late game sort of thing. Kind of like how increasing the vacpack stack to 100 is a late game sort of thing.

[404_Not_Found]

Yeah the slime science resources are also where I mostly run into frustration. You cannot even sell them or use them for anything but slime science, so it would be nice if you could just make them automatically go into the refinery on harvesting, I do have refinery and market links set up but I still run into the problem of having too much to do on my ranch just to progress and it only gets more annoying when you need to stick extractors out in the range for specific resources.

Treasure pods especially, I just straight up do not open them unless I'm content to open one at a time. I am terrified of science resources despawning.

Also every survival game in existence (including wilderness, a game that takes weight into account for inventory and is basically so hellbent on realism it can get pedantic and insufferable) has taught me about inventory management, so I kinda just assumed for the longest time it was a game mechanic to balance inventory as well. I only bring it up now and only suggest 1 or 2 extra slots, or a separate inventory for science resources, because I think somewhere along the way, an imbalance was created in resource diversity and slots available.

Also, I think adding a separate slot for water was a good idea since early on you had to dedicate one of your 4 inventory slots to it. Believe me when I tell you this was a real pain.

[Ǵ̶͓̂͑lí̴̤̀̄́tcĥ̸]

You know, oddly enough I never considered just carrying a market and (more importantly) refinery link around with me on outings until Lodrelhai brought it up. Seems like such a "freaking duh" type of thing too, lol, but that pretty much solves the science resource issue because you can pick the refinery link back up without destroying it.

Find some resources, swap to tech view, pop link, shoot them in, pick link up and move on.

[404_Not_Found]

Yeah that's fair I guess but, seems kind of exploity. Then again, so does making largos out of meat slimes and veggie slimes so I never have to raise chickens :V