4Game

So I decided to make a list of the various ideas I've had over the last year that I think would improve/add to the game as a whole. I'm going to try organizing these according to how easy I think they would be to implement them into the game (from very easy to potentially not possible). I'll also try to group these up by overall category just to keep things a little organized. I also understand that many of these ideas I've had may be things the developers are already considering, and that some of them are already featured in mods, but I'm hoping that they can become full features of the game so modding isn't necessary to use them. If you have one of your own I'd love to see it.

Food

-Please change boar jerky to deer jerky. I've noticed there is an abundance of recipe's for boar meat but only a stew recipe for deer meat. It would just be nice to see the recipe demand evened out a little bit, but I can see several possible reasons either way.

EDIT: -I also think jerky should be changed to stamina item. From what I understand, the developers want to stay away from having a 'middle" option between the health and stamina and the jerky sort of contradicts that. I actually assumed jerky was going to be a middle option into the higher tiers so if they want to stay away from it they may want to change that.

-Some more fish recipe's would also be great. A very similar issue to deer meat, there is a surprising absence of recipe's for these two items. I know Scandinavian countries also eat a lot of fermented fish, so there could be some recipe ideas there that could maybe use the fermenters to make batches of it at a time.

-In general, it would be nice to see "lower tier" food items like carrots continue to be used in higher tier recipe's (maybe combine carrots with honey and flour for a "carrot cake" item?)

Armor, Clothing, and Weapons

-I'm a big supporter of players being able to customize their armor, but I also understand the desire to have a progression of items and balance accordingly. So, while this is likely already part of the plan, I'd like to see more style choices for the armor sets. I would like to be able to choose a different color for things like the pants and shirt underneath, for example, the scale iron armor set, it would go a long way to providing customization while only really needing a handful of new textures in those colors. It would also be nice to be able to match my armor styling to the shield styling I like, since I'm sure I'm not the only person that wants to match my clothing style to the shield color styling I like.

-Tiered upgrading. This could be done several ways but I think the one most in-line with the current design would be building an accessory for a forge (or maybe artisan table) that would allow you to take an "old" gear set you prefer cosmetically and upgrading it to the new tier available. As an example: If I like the scaled iron armor style, but want the protection of padded armor, I can use this accessory to upgrade it to that level, but it also means I have to upgrade it using the iron and linen thread you upgrade the padded armor with. This way the progression as far as necessary materials and crafting remains the same, while allowing the player to keep an armor style they like without making themselves weaker.

-In addition, you could also make the textures, and style choices, more "regal" in overall appearance while leaving the basic mesh used unaltered so you can tell the difference between an armor that is at its base level and one that's had its tier increased. Maybe making the clothing a little more detailed in texture, or showing a different "finish" on the armor plating itself.

-This could be done with weapons too, which would be nice for the same reasons. This would, I believe, be a relatively small amount of work for a major increase in overall appearance variety and customization.

-I think cloaks could make an interesting mechanic that could present players with some interesting choices. Part of this would be including a "hood' function to them. As an example, if the player is wearing the appropriate cloak, when they press "h" it toggles off their current headgear in favor of a hood, when this is used, it provides protection from the rain. So you won't get wet, but specifically from rain. If you're still swimming in the ocean you'll still get wet, so the protection only applies to rainfall. It should also only apply to cloaks that don't already have some kind of bonus applied to them. I think it could be interesting in giving players the ability to decide if wearing a helmet is more important than staying dry in whatever situation they're in and provides a bit more purpose to the other cloaks in the game.

Combat and Skills

-I think 1 hand axes need an overhead chop as a secondary attack. I'm not sure what the idea is behind them not having one, I just think its odd that they are one of the few weapons that doesn't. If not, I think it would be just as handy to allow us to use the unarmed "kick" as a secondary attack for axes also.

-The Jumping skill should also eliminate fall damage from at least as high as you can jump. I just don't think it makes any sense to be able to jump so high that you can cause yourself to experience fall damage. I think its a sound set of logic that you shouldn't be able to take damage from falling from the same height you can jump to.

-Spears should be utilized a little differently. I'm not sure if this is due to how the animations currently work or not, I just think it should be changed a bit. I love being able to throw them, but the default attack leaves a lot to be desired in my opinion. I think using a spear should be a more defensive tactic, with the default "stance" being the phalanx style formation we're used to seeing, with the shield held up front and spear sticking out over the side. The attack could be a short jab that doesn't do much damage relatively speaking, but the benefit is having a strong defense available instead. You could also make the damage of the spear dependent on whether a shield is equipped or not, allowing it to "switch" between a one handed spear or two handed accordingly and letting the damage change as a result. This could make spears great for people who want a strong defense.

-I think dual wielded weapons could be great if balanced well. In this respect I think Skyrim actually had a good philosophy in saying that it allowed for faster attacks while sacrificing the ability to block. I do think an argument could be made to at least allow them to parry, but not as well as a shield and not a full block. I could see this being done in a few ways, either allow a weapon to be specifically crafted for the off-hand and labelled that way for clarity, or allow weapons to be paired together at a workbench so that they occupy one slot, but combining their weight and increasing the equip time. This way whenever the item is equipped it is by default dual wielding the pair. Any two one-handed weapons could be paired together also, not just two of the same item, so someone could have dual swords, or a sword and offhand dagger, etc. I could see pros and cons to both systems, so I don't really have a preference, those are just two ideas I had.

-I would love to see training dummies. I'm not sure what the current opinion is of developers but some skills take too long to level and if you don't start out using a certain weapon early on, then you are only incentivized to keep using certain ones as time goes on. Without a reasonable means of leveling weapon skills up faster, there's no reason to branch out and try new weapons, and a training dummy would go a long way to solve that. To balance it out you could have different "tiers" that only allow a weapon skill to go up to a certain point before you have to get a newer type of training dummy to try and balance things out.

Inventory, Items, and UI

-I think we need armor slots, or a sort of "character screen". I know this is an often-requested feature and I'm adding my vote to that. However, I also think that armor equipped in that slot should weigh slightly less. Having spent some time in the military, I can tell you from my own experience that wearing the armor made it much easier to carry than trying to haul it in a pack. So while I do think it should hinder movement a bit, that's why I'm advocating that it instead have its weight reduced to 2/3 of its full weight when equipped on the player.

-I think there should be backpacks in the game, but done in a style similar to the game "Outward". In that game, there were several packs available, each of differing sizes. What size pack you wore impacted your overall movement speed and ability to dodge in a fight. A light pack didn't effect movement much but didn't give much extra room, while a large "mountain climber" style pack gave lots more room but completely eliminated your ability to dodge while wearing it. However, you could also use a button to drop the pack on the ground in an emergency, but you also had to remember where that pack was in order to recover it after the fight. I think this would make an interesting addition to the game, but I can understand how it might be difficult to pull off from a programming perspective. I imagine it would be like making a storage chest something you could equip on your back and be able to drop and reattach at will, so I could see it having lots of technical hurdles to overcome.

-I could also see forcing this to be a tradeoff between having a pack or wearing a cloak, but maybe not both at once. Or perhaps only certain types of cloaks being compatible with a pack.

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Well, this ended up being a bit longer than I thought it would be, thanks for sticking around if you've read this far. If you liked anything here, or have something to add please do. I'm sure I'm not the only one with ideas so lets see them!