Topic

Tool Proliferation

I know that the tool setup is pretty entrenched by this point, but every time I sit down to craft I'm still overwhelmed by how many tools there are total. A lot of them are various cooking tools which are closely related but not identical, and I know that this is used for gating the skills, etc, but I still feel that there are too many tools total, particularly when it comes to cooking.

Minecraft is an example of a game which also has a lot of tools, but its tools feel more conceptually independent and there are less tools total. Each tool in Minecraft has a very unique feel and purpose, and even when I first started playing Minecraft, I never felt overwhelmed by the number of tools. On the other hand, the number of tools in Glitch seems excessive to me even after playing for quite a bit. Because I need to use practically every tool I have in every play session, I must carry them all around with me-- and a lot of the tool icons, too, look pretty similar when they're tiny in my inventory bars. There are so many that the feel homogenous and excessive, not varied and interesting.

Posted 15 months ago by Shoehorn Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Something that might go a long way toward helping with this is allowing characters with many high-level skills to make a kind of "multitool" item which replaces several commonly-used tools. 

    A good balance to the multitool's many uses could come in its wear bar, which would decrease every time you used it for any of the relevant activities-- so instead of having many wear bars spread out over, like, 5 tools, the player would need to watch a single wear bar and repair it conscientiously.
    Posted 15 months ago by Shoehorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i love this idea!
    Posted 15 months ago by Tundra Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Although i see your point on this subject (and it's come up many times), i think i also see TS's aim, too. I get the impression that the Glitch of thee future will have... possibly a hundred tools or more. TS have gone out of their way to make the game so that everyone can achieve everything, but it's more convenient to have friends. This is another way to encourage specialization. Now, what I don't get is why some work units cannot be done with superior tools; this just seems gratuitous. Anyway, I have no inside information nor any claim to KNOW, just get the strong impression that the dev team are seeking to avoid helping players more conveniently do everything in the game alone.
    Posted 15 months ago by FlirtyvonSexenhaven Subscriber! | Permalink
  • There are ways for them to actually encourage specialization. Right ow it's easier to not specialize, which means that there's no reason to not try and carry all the tools. I bet you don't carry around half the tools for your skills, do you? If they really wanted specialization, they could limit us to one toolbox and force us to carry all our tools only in toolboxes, or something.
    Posted 15 months ago by Shoehorn Subscriber! | Permalink