The horse is not quite dead: Locker space and fun

[Bloggorus]

Did the backpack stop working?

Never quite used it.

Typically the items i have brought from a previous run are related to the strategy i was employing.

As much as i try to pretend otherwise, my strategy and choice of class are usually informed by what i already have in my locker.

Its a vicious cycle.

If you were to turn the backpack into a random lucky dip of all the items i have ever lockered though, i would probably use it.

[FDru]

Did the backpack stop working?

My issue with the backpack is that if you prep something from it (like a Balanced Dagger), it won't be in there again on the next run even if you keep it until the end.

[Sidestepper]

The backpack works, but it doesn't really address the issue so much as offer a very mild palitative effect, similar to maybe half an extra locker slot.

I openly admit to hacking my game to get all 9 locker slots (hee-hee according to the PMs I got from dislekcia this was causing some seriously weird error reports, sorry about that and thanks for being so chill about it). Even at the full 9 slots, locker space is a serious deterrent to trying new things and has pretty much removed incentive to experiment with things like the Cauldron or the new Orb of Zot. Part of it is having to scum for the new item, and part of it is the knowledge that I will have to scum again when the experiment is over and I want to restore my old item. I cannot imagine playing with 4-6 slots, which is what most people dpo.

I understand and respect that locker space was designed as a limited resource and I think it does play a meaningful role during kingdom development, but once you've unlocked everything and have overthrown Horatio, it stops being fun and starts being a chore. I haven't offered any concrete suggestion for reconciling the current design with the gameplay realities of the endgame because I respect your creative abilities. But since we're on the topic, here's an idea that might work and also sounds fun and exciting to me as a player:

After 'winning' the game, the Kingdom creates a vault (better yet, Packmaster descends from the heavens and blesses your kingdom with said vault). It starts out with few or possibly even no slots available. You can earn the right to purchase new slots by accomplishing difficult endgame benchmarks. Maybe you get a slot for every 3-4 classes that beat a Vicious dungeon. Maybe you get one for every dungeon that you 100%. Or maybe you get slots for doing both.

Once you've vaulted an item, you own it forever. Items in the vault can't be prepped, but for a nominal fee (say 100 gold) your hardworking engineers will create a copy of the vaulted item that can be lockered normally.

This kind of set up would address several things that players have been wanting for the late game.

1) We get a fun and interesting incentive for doing difficult completionist stuff.
2) We remove the time tax on experimenting with new items
3) It leaves the existing locker system intact and doesn't interfere with kingdom development as it already exists.

[Lujo]

And as long as quests let you buy more vault slots - you can turn it into a gold sink as well. Would spruce up the PQI quite a bit.

I think I'm the only person who's actively, or has been actively, experimenting with the cauldron, and one of the few habitual codex users. I also use the fabulous treasure. 7 of my eight locker slots are tied up with stuff that would take time to go through vicious dungeons (or the thief gold challenge), and scumming for a quest/elite or godforbid subdungeon item is a serious chore - it takes several runs, more if I'm not a tinker, but the runs take longer if I'm not a transmuter.

If I backpack something then it means I'm playing the same strat on my next run even if I switch up the class, and it means I only get to use something on my next run. If I switch strats up - it's useless, if I don't like it - I might've tried it with the wrong thing but wont go looking for it again, and if I like it I have to scum for it and fill up my only "available" locker slot. The 8th one. That's 2 slots into the ludicrous-gold-sink territory.

And I'm pining to try out a whole bunch of lockerable subdungeon items which look very interesting... I think sidestepper is right on this thing - we aren't asking for "bring 2 items on any run", were asking for something that moves our time usage from "very tedious and offputting grindy stuff" into "exploring content in a completionist manner". It doesn't lead to escalation, it leads to fillin out the wiki, discovering new strats, and whining about stuff less (due to opening up our perspecitve). Also giving you feedback on stuff that we can't really see now due to cheeze clogging up our lockers.

[dislekcia]

I openly admit to hacking my game to get all 9 locker slots (hee-hee according to the PMs I got from dislekcia this was causing some seriously weird error reports, sorry about that and thanks for being so chill about it). Even at the full 9 slots, locker space is a serious deterrent to trying new things and has pretty much removed incentive to experiment with things like the Cauldron or the new Orb of Zot. Part of it is having to scum for the new item, and part of it is the knowledge that I will have to scum again when the experiment is over and I want to restore my old item. I cannot imagine playing with 4-6 slots, which is what most people dpo.

I'm sorry, but if you've already removed any context to items and lockering by hacking, how is your opinion about item gain pain relevant? It's the same as people who pirate tons of games: They hardly play any of them because every game is equally meaningless due to a lack of acquisition plan. You're experiencing the same thing with items: Trying to find an item or uncover one is meaningless to you because you've removed any triumph you could have experienced in the process of finding/unlocking that item.

... Plus there are already mechanisms in the game to give you easier access to items: Every Silver challenge will grant you that item on completion. Backpack items remain available when restarting a run, so just keep restarting if you want to mess with a strategy but don't want to "sacrifice" a locker slot.

Most of you have items that sit in your locker and don't DO anything at all. I'm inclined to give items a decay rate to cycle un-played items out of the locker more often, just to illustrate that point. It's not the power or usefulness of an item that makes you keep it in your locker when you don't use it, it's the joy you took in overcoming the obstacles to acquiring it - if we were to make all items available without any acquisition discomfort, we'd be sabotaging the exact value that you're enjoying most about the items you keep! And you can't say otherwise, because you wouldn't be keeping items you don't use if that wasn't the case.

[Lujo]

I didn't hack anything, and I don't keep them there because of the joy of unlocking them, but the time it would take me to go through the motions to relocker them if I let go of them. And I keep them around because if I don't then a bunch of not particularly interesting PQI would also be really, really difficult. Seriously, not keeping the codex in there, for example, would really limit my options on priest and monk runs. Just showing you that that logic isn't necessarily right.

That concept is right if you really want to believe it's right - except the state of the wiki, and all the wailing about loosing bits of cheeze say most people would rather lynch someone rather than have to relocker even the tri-sword. Or even prep quest items with a vetoed up item bracked knowing they'd find it (like I do, I prep it very rarely). Or so it seems.

As for item decay - sure, nice one, but I'm really curious how it goes over with the general population.

EDIT: And there's allready an IMMENSE ammount of runs to do for FUN. And the PQI. And completion. I'd rather play the game as if somethign was unlockerable completely than go through challenges/vicious just to relocker something.

EDIT2: Or in other words - it's not only the power or usefullness that keeps something in the locker - that's the main and principle thing. The trisword will never leave most peoples lockers unless it's nerfed or alternatives are introduced. The second is time investment of having to do a redundant run in a game that has about million runs for a completionist to do. And I think you've been spoiled a bit by having a bunch of people who spend an ludicrous ammount of time with your game and try to provide feedback and promotion while sidestepping obvious big issues like this one. It's affected the development, testing and quite possibly sales (or will affect them) in ways you don't seem to be aware of.

[Sidestepper]

I'm sorry, but if you've already removed any context to items and lockering by hacking, how is your opinion about item gain pain relevant? It's the same as people who pirate tons of games: They hardly play any of them because every game is equally meaningless due to a lack of acquisition plan. You're experiencing the same thing with items: Trying to find an item or uncover one is meaningless to you because you've removed any triumph you could have experienced in the process of finding/unlocking that item.

Hey dude, I respect you as a developer and all, but I really don't appreciate your tone or the way you just equated me with a thief. I am guy that liked your game enough to pre-order it, recommend it to my friends, and provide extensive feedback and introductory tutorials. I was also one of the few people that used to faithfully restart his kingdom every few weeks to catch new bugs, and I have the bug feedback record to prove it.

You're also speaking from a position of ignorance. I have absolutely felt the pain of acquisition. My old profile went all the way up to 8 locker slots, earned the hard way. That was the same profile I used to make the old kingdom management thread (a thing I did as a favor to the community). After the last restart, I decided that it just wasn't worth my time to grind up that gold again for what I see as a convenience feature. The reason I brought up the modded nature of my game is that even with a unrealistically high number of slots, the locker system is still not fun during the post game.

... Plus there are already mechanisms in the game to give you easier access to items: Every Silver challenge will grant you that item on completion. Backpack items remain available when restarting a run, so just keep restarting if you want to mess with a strategy but don't want to "sacrifice" a locker slot.

Yeah, we know about it, but redoing a quest that you've already done is usually more of a chore than a joy, especially if you're in the mood to experiment with the balanced dagger, but not in the mode to replay Thief Silver.

Most of you have items that sit in your locker and don't DO anything at all. I'm inclined to give items a decay rate to cycle un-played items out of the locker more often, just to illustrate that point. It's not the power or usefulness of an item that makes you keep it in your locker when you don't use it, it's the joy you took in overcoming the obstacles to acquiring it - if we were to make all items available without any acquisition discomfort, we'd be sabotaging the exact value that you're enjoying most about the items you keep! And you can't say otherwise, because you wouldn't be keeping items you don't use if that wasn't the case.

Yeah dude, I'm not sure you even read my post where I not only advocated for a challenging method of acquisition, but even directly suggested it. I'm not going to argue anymore, and after this, I'm not sure I should even post anymore. You all but called me a thief and took a really selective reading of my post.

[paplaukes]

Where's the triumph of acquirement if you don't get to keep the item?
Is repeated acquirement still a triumph or a chore?

I've been doing some forgotten silver challenges and realized I don't even care about unlocking them for the first time - because I know there's no space in the locker so they'll just pollute the shop pool.

Locker space: trusty go-to items (dragon shield, dwarven gauntlets, fine sword, balanced dagger), niche use (mage plate, martyr wraps), and "I don't want to spend 30 min acquiring this again" stuff (vicious rewards, anything costing 50+g).

Any new item to try has a repeatable 10-20min "find&replace" tax.

Some vault o' replication could do. It would allow to stash those decaying "I don't want to go through this again" trophies and free up some locker space for experiments. If there has to be a replication cost, make it 100-200g. An item swap would end up costing 200-400g, so a cost of burning dungeon. Same 10-20min, but spent playing, not scumming.

[Galefury]

Wasn't there a time when you had to choose between preps a building would offer, blocking two of them? Wasn't that removed? Why do the reasons for this change not apply to items in lockers?

I hated the locker system. It really does stifle experimentation. And while it challenged me with a difficult strategic choice, neither the choice nor its result was fun. I only felt the pain of not having certain things lockered, while having access to the lockered items just felt normal. After all I earned it. Overall the locker system was a very negative experience, and I think some way of getting functionally infinite locker slots in the endgame would make DD much more enjoyable.

And if, as some people have said, completion is currently not being rewarded enough, this might be just the thing to reward it with. Currently just about every single person on this forum who has played DD for a long time is saying they don't enjoy the locker system. This is exactly the demographic who might be crazy enough to go for full completion. Seems like a match made in heaven. Sidestepper's latest suggestion sounds pretty good to me.

The locker system does have a lot of advantages during the kingdom development phase of the game. But eventually they disappear. Bothering people with the disadvantages at a time where the advantages no longer apply just seems weird. In a game like DD there really is no point in forcing people to grind when they want to experiment.

[sitnaltax]

Sidestepper speaks well. I agree with his point about locker space, although I might feel less strongly. I also agree with the offense he takes at being equated to a pirate or cheater.

I know I rarely use most of my locker items. In particular the Vicious items are mostly just trophies, and the Fine Sword is just there for when PQI throws Hobbler's Hold at me and I just want to click every monster until it goes away. If the devs are adamant about not increasing the locker size even "post-game", maybe some sort of trophy case is worth consideration?

Edited to add an example. Maybe I'm poking around on the wiki and see something that says, well, Item X has an interesting combo with a Priest. Well, I'm mostly playing PQI, which is my favorite way to play and fun, but it means that I probably won't see a Priest at all for a couple days. Even if I do, if the item's in my locker, man, I have to go fetch it, and I can't even close the game or my PQI gets rerolled. Are there ways to work around this? Of course, but I would rather not think so hard about the metagame.