New Perk Tree : Organization

[Khyron]

Increasing the size of stacks of items is a huge balance issue, I get it. But the best way to balance things? With Perks! Because it costs perk points as an investment it provides a reasonable reward for the investment.

 

• New Tree : Organization. (Governing Attribute : Intelligence)
  Increase your personal efficiency and increase the amount of items in a stack by becoming more Organized.
   
• Level 1 - Disorganized
  You're disorganized, but starting to consider how to improve. Increase the size of all stacks by 20%.
• Level 2 - Systemic.
  You've created a system, and it lets you keep things in order better. Increase the size of all stacks by 40%.
• Level 3 - Natural Fit.
  You've learned how multiple objects can naturally fit together to use less space. Increase the size of all stacks by 60%.
• Level 4 - Exceptional Planner.
  When you do things according to plan, everything works out better in the end. Increase the size of all stacks by 80%.
• Level 5 - Tetris Master.
  You can stack items together so perfectly that there is almost no wasted space between them. Increase the size of all stacked items by 100%.

 

I know that there are mods which do this, but I feel that making it a part of the base game would be worthwhile because it does address an issue that vanilla players often have, that of inventory space being difficult to manage later on. 

[Riamus]

2 minutes ago, Khyron said:

Increasing the size of stacks of items is a huge balance issue, I get it. But the best way to balance things? With Perks! Because it costs perk points as an investment it provides a reasonable reward for the investment.

 

• New Tree : Organization. (Governing Attribute : Intelligence)
  Increase your personal efficiency and increase the amount of items in a stack by becoming more Organized.
   
• Level 1 - Disorganized
  You're disorganized, but starting to consider how to improve. Increase the size of all stacks by 20%.
• Level 2 - Systemic.
  You've created a system, and it lets you keep things in order better. Increase the size of all stacks by 40%.
• Level 3 - Natural Fit.
  You've learned how multiple objects can naturally fit together to use less space. Increase the size of all stacks by 60%.
• Level 4 - Exceptional Planner.
  When you do things according to plan, everything works out better in the end. Increase the size of all stacks by 80%.
• Level 5 - Tetris Master.
  You can stack items together so perfectly that there is almost no wasted space between them. Increase the size of all stacked items by 100%.

 

I know that there are mods which do this, but I feel that making it a part of the base game would be worthwhile because it does address an issue that vanilla players often have, that of inventory space being difficult to manage later on. 

Although the idea has merit, I feel like most players who have played for a while will end up not bothering with this if it were in the game.  The main reason is that the majority of items don't really matter as you aren't likely to reach the stack limit anyhow.  Mostly, it'll come down to ammo and sometimes food or drink.  Most other things don't matter because you rarely end up with enough on you to reach the stack limit anyhow.  I could see something like this that is specific to ammo, though.

[Khyron]

I feel like it'd be a huge help with ammo, medicine, explosives, and food/water. Those are all items where you want to have a reasonable amount with you and larger stacks let you carry more without having to sacrifice inventory space or constantly find yourself going back to your vehicle/base to get more.

[Riamus]

7 hours ago, Khyron said:

I feel like it'd be a huge help with ammo, medicine, explosives, and food/water. Those are all items where you want to have a reasonable amount with you and larger stacks let you carry more without having to sacrifice inventory space or constantly find yourself going back to your vehicle/base to get more.

I could see that if you use those regularly enough.  Out of those, all I would have need of higher stacks of is ammo.  I rarely carry medicine unless I loot it and end up with so much stored up since I never use it that looting more isn't really a big deal.  Once I start cooking, one stack of food and water is enough at current stack limits to last me until I return to base without any issues.  And I never use explosives except rarely during blood moon just for kicks (and to get rid of the huge amounts I end up collecting).

 

As far as looting goes, bandages are usually the only medical items that you'll loot enough of to reach the stack limit since it's only 5 and they are common.  I could see increasing that to 10.  Food usually ends up being enough variety that you won't hit stack limits of any one type.  And explosives aren't looted often enough to reach stack limits.  So even with looting, ammo is the one thing where this would really have value, at least for me.  I don't mind leaving medical supplies behind if I'm out of room.  And I usually work to get more carry capacity through vehicles and eventually a drone to compensate for the increased loot in higher tier POIs.  Once you're running around with a motorcycle or especially 4x4 and you have a tier 6 drone with 4 cargo mods, space isn't a factor.  Knowing that, adding points to a perk that won't really matter that much feels like a waste of those points when there are other perks that would offer far more value.

 

If they were to add increased stack size to a perk, I think it would be far better as part of another perk we already have (or multiple perks to spread out different types of things) instead of a new perk tree.  The pack horse perk could easily add a stack increase as part of the perk, for example.  Or higher gun perks might add an increased stack size of that particular ammo.  These would then be valuable enough to want to spend points in rather than something you usually don't get until you've gotten just about everything else.  We have enough of those types of perks as it is.  I know I'll never get the cardio perk unless there's nothing else to get, for example.  The stamina while running really only matters until you get a vehicle, which doesn't take very long, so it just feels like a wasted set of perk points that could be used on more valuable perks.