One-line idea: allow players to purchase extra inventory space from Brax or receive it as a quest reward. In-depth: Allowing players to buy extra inventory space (added as pasting rows onto the bottom of your inventory in much the same way as your resists and damage spaces increase when you run out of space) solves two issues: end-game players have nothing to buy, and inventory is in scarce supply. I recommend one of the following price progressions: Code: (Row^2)*10000 ((Row-1)^2)*10000+10000 (Row^3)*5000 (Row^3)*2500 1 10000 10000 5000 2500 2 40000 20000 40000 20000 3 90000 50000 135000 67500 4 160000 100000 320000 160000 5 250000 170000 625000 312500 6 360000 260000 1080000 540000 7 490000 370000 1715000 857500 8 640000 500000 2560000 1280000 9 810000 650000 3645000 1822500 10 1000000 820000 5000000 2500000 11 1210000 1010000 6655000 3327500 12 1440000 1220000 8640000 4320000 13 1690000 1450000 10985000 5492500 14 1960000 1700000 13720000 6860000 15 2250000 1970000 16875000 8437500 16 2560000 2260000 20480000 10240000 17 2890000 2570000 24565000 12282500 18 3240000 2900000 29160000 14580000 19 3610000 3250000 34295000 17147500 20 4000000 3620000 40000000 20000000 The first progression (additional row number squared times 10,000) makes the most sense to me. I wouldn't recommend going up to 20 additional rows, but it's included here for completeness. Note that these prices aren't cumulative: they are the individual row price. To buy 10 additional rows on the first progression, you pay a grand total of 3,850,000z, or nearly every zorkmid my last character finished the game with. Progression 4 allows for cheaper initial rows but has a much steeper incline than progression 1. To buy the same ten rows on progression 4 would cost 7,562,500z, a sum that most characters never see over the course of their entire careers (as a whole value, anyway: they may certainly come up with that much money in total). Quest rewards? Sure, pretty simple. Occasionally, Inconsequentia or the God of Lutefisk don't give you an artifact, but instead give you an extra row of inventory (or a potion that bestows such upon you).
UPGRAYEDD! honestly I don't like this idea only because inventory space should be free. FREE FOR EVERYONE
I would pay any price for more inventory space. I cannot fathom why there is not already a means to this end. We cannot be crafters and have inventory that works for this. Period. If we follow FaxCelestis idea, we should probably stick with Row-1)^2)*10000+10000 since it is the most simple formula to my senses. But any formula would work. We can spend hours slaughtering Diggles for the zorkmids to buy a reasonable inventory. (Or we could start with a separate crafters components inventory as I suggested elsewhere.)
Love it. As suggested above or another way, slightly more space to juggle inventory with is #1 on my personal wishlist for DoD, and the lack of said space #1 on my very short list of annoyances with the game. I know I'm not alone in never ever taking craft skills, just so I don't have to fill my whole pack with mats I might find use for.
I like the idea of expanding the inventory, but I'm not sure money is the way to achieve it. My main question is: Is it fun? My general answer would be no. It encourages more grinding in a game where character life is short(both in terms of the likelihood of them dying, and the overall length of a full game.) I can't personally see myself using infinite production skills(Fungal Arts/Piracy/Perception in the expansion) in conjunction with a crafting skill in order to afford space for all the stuff I'll be carrying around, when I can beat the game on that character(thus rendering the grinding useless) in a little over 5 hours. As a quest reward, I can see that, but. I'd would rather see a new, unique "mini-boss" monster added to every level/every other level. who spawns a bag upgrade and loot when he dies. It gives a new, rewarding challenge to seek out every level/every other level.
Seriously, you beat the game in just over 5 hours? How do you do it? NTTG? No RotDG? EE? Are you skipping floors? Avoiding zoos? Are there particular builds you play that speed it up so much? I regularly spend over an hour per floor in the middle third of the game, sometimes 2 hours on a floor. That someone can beat the whole game in 1/4 the time it takes me just leaves me stunned.
I too take my sweet time on floors. An hour per floor is about right to *Just* get through the floor. Any less would mean skipping part of it.
I think it's possible. I play on NTTG and usually get to floor 7 within an hour or two, but then I get bored. I usually skip zoos, yeah.
Might have been an exaggeration, but I've beaten it in a single sitting before on DM, which couldn't have been more than 6 hours. First: I play with fast animations. Second: Smithing. Early game advantages, late game, see my third. Third: Archeology + A few of the crafts from Smithing basically let you craft EXP. (Emerald Necklace, off the top of my head. My last play through included Piracy for that) Fourth: Rob Brax anytime he has gear that outclasses enemies, especially if his shop is near an exit. I've gotten a lot of fairly strong armor/weapons from level 1/2 in the past. Fifth: Go down a level when you no longer get much experience compared to your XP TNL.. For 15 Floors: Demonlogy, up to Celestial Circle. I try not to go further, because Fish Paladins start really screwing with you after that. If I get a Zoo on a level that actually provides the experience worth wiping out the zoo: Walk to the nearest bottleneck, pop Celestial Circle, down some booze and smack everything until it dies. Incredibly small risk of dying against most enemies, unless they melee/cast with a type of damage that isn't mitigated by Celestial Circle(and even when encountering one of those, bottle-necking them means you're left 1 on 1. Most enemies aren't dangerous in any 1 on 1 scenario.. Pick off enemies that blink/run around with a crossbow, whatever strong arrows you managed to pick up and 2 tomes. Definitely pick off corruption blobbies using that. I rarely do floors 12, 13 and 14, because I normally can kill things ruthlessly by then, though I might glance around for Crownstar Addendums for their outrageous XP boosts. Above that, I skip any floors when the enemies aren't providing me with enough EXP. For Dred: I hardly use any consumables(Outside of food/drink, and bolts) up until the later floors. I eat/drink everything I have remaining, then look for Dred, saving only Purity/Replenishment and Healing potions. Cast Celestial Circle when you find him. Hit him with any high powered bolts(with 2 tomes) you have left until he gets into melee range, then swap to 2 weapons(With a full outfit,the damage penalty is outpaced by the damage bonus) and beat on him. Still a fair chance of dying, but with purity potions and healing after he uses a bolt, the odds are better for winning. Again, that's DM, but I expect that to be the mode most players play on/start out on.
Thank you for the answers/pointers. May have to give an Archaeology/Crafting/Piracy/Demonology build a try sometime. It never would have occurred to me that a crafting build might possibly speed up the game, in my experience it's usually done the opposite.
alchemy is also nice for crafting infinite exp. piracy ----> infinite gems ----> mass craft the lv6 windows amulet ----> send to museum ---> profit!