TL;DR: Allow the player to choose what items from the inventory appear in the backpack. The player can hold the items just like they can hold fish, food, and other items that are in the backpack currently. The current items that appear in the backpack would go into the backpack by default, the others would not. There would be settings to change what goes into the backpack automatically.
Until recently, players could hold certain items such as reagents due to the items being in the backpack in order to use them in crafting. With the improvements to the crafting systems, this was deemed superfluous and the items were removed from the backpack for some performance gains. I feel this has diminished the game in certain ways, and so I propose a solution to retain the benefits of not having everything in the backpack, while bringing back the benefits of having the items in the backpack, and more: Allow the player to choose what items will appear in the backpack.
Benefits:
- Illumination from certain items such as Prometheusâ Acrimony and Luminous Coral
- Having items on the toolbar to track how many of them you have at a glance, or opening the backpack with the ~ button to check there, rather than going through the inventory, which changes the way the camera is facing and locks movement
- Remove excess food and potions from the backpack now that the player can choose what is in the backpack
- Showing off cool items and any visual effects they may have such as the glow from a scorching metal shard. This could potentially be expanded to equipment, such as a Sunken Sword or an Easter Egg, allowing even more items to be shown off without needing to equip them.
- Fixes the problem where jewels cannot be placed on the jewel rack in the brig
- Maintains the performance gains from not needing to have as many items into the backpack by default, and may improve it by allowing the player to selectively remove more items from the backpack as they see fit (My knowledge of AO and Robloxâs inner workings is limited, so take any speculation about how this change would affect performance with a grain of salt.)
I have two ideas on how the implementation could look: Either a menu could appear when the item is clicked on with a checkbox to toggle it in and out of the backpack, or a toggle in the inventory could be added to switch to a âbackpack selectionâ mode that allows one-click toggling in and out of the backpack. I prefer the second one, as it would be less clicking overall and would stay out of the way of other inventory functions such as applying scrolls.
In addition, there could be some player settings available to determine what goes into the backpack automatically, with an option to reset the backpack - so, for example, you could deselect Food in these settings and reset the backpack, and there wouldnât be any food items in your backpack, only the items you chose to automatically have in the backpack, leaving you to add your food of choice to the backpack manually.
As for items that do not have 3D models, I can think of the following options:
- Do not allow them to be put into the backpack at all
- Do not allow them to be held as a backpack item
- Display them as a 2D image in the hands of the player when selected from the backpack just like in the inventory
- Find or create 3D models for them
Even within the past few days I have felt the absence of certain items from my backpack. When it is night time, I lack a light source that isnât going to influence the color I see on my equipment due to not being able to hold Prometheusâ Acrimony, which is a time-out when I am trying to work on vanity. I reflexively opened my backpack to check my reagents as I am building up Luminous Coral for the upcoming update, only to be disappointed. Finally, as silly as it was, I like to think I made people smile when I went up to them holding a prismatic geode, saying âlook at this cool rock i foundâ. I hope that this suggestion is taken into serious consideration, as not only will it return some niche uses that have been incidentally removed, this feature would have some additional benefits that could be a boon for even more of the player base.
