I always gather up all the extremes of every type of item I can find, plan ahead for whatever build I am interested in.
Luckily, I only play one character and it always has the same goals, so the amount of interesting sets are limited. But it’s like, yea i keep a good regen piece; not because i will use it but because of the possibility that I would find a use.
The items are rare. I got doubles, no triple, except the amu which is a single and I don’t see it replaced anytime soon. And I play a lot, more than you. However, my methods are not the most efficient… which is a different discussion: If I am entitled to triples or not.
This problem with the inventory, because that’s what I like to discuss, led me to this solution: A discrete inventory on every possible item.
Every possible item has a progress. If you find one that is triple ga, you have that perfect item and will not find any more such items. Every inferior item is converted to materials.
Every item would be like a tree, it has 3 stats for legendary: Dex, life, crit; for example.
One item would be: Dex1, life1, crit1
Upgraded: Dex1, life1, crit2
Choice item: Dex2, life1, crit1
Choice: Dex1, life2, crit1
Superior: Dex2, life1, crit2; which replaces all of the above except the life2 item, condensing the tree to the 2,2,2 item eventually.
“Hmm, this one’s better.”
So there’d always be a certain selection of bows condensed into only the best of their category.
So… no inventory like it was, it’s more of a library like the codex is; gradually upgrading.
And we’d be able to trade our progress on any item to someone else for whatever they’d like to trade that progress for.
And tempering and mastery would act as a filter for that particular item. AND tempering would have the charges it has currently but when those were out they were replaced with a tempering cooldown of appropriate length. Hours or more.
And trading the item would completely reset tempering and mastery for both parties.
That would be the end of item handling as it has been. We’d only store superior items and we wouldn’t sort it manually. Instead we would select from a list what we use.
I don’t know if this is a good idea. Feels bad that i’m not handling the items anymore, like more ethereal. What I really want to express is the frustration with the current item system because it’s not interesting to click the blacksmith, that needs to be recognized. What’s interesting in the very beginning quickly becomes a detrimental chore that has no gameplay value.