OreEnthusiast

Correct. Like I stated in the post the singular backpack would ideally fill out about 70-80% of the currents slots granted by a total set of the same tier of bags, and the rest would be filled by a number of pouches deemed sensible for balance. Probably about 1-2 secondary bags so the third slot can be left for customization or to spend extra resources for a few extra slots.

Found it weird that the inventory system is just a bunch of individual bags thrown onto the character. Even more weird once you get to the backpack stage and you're carrying around 4 entire backpacks which leaves me with the mental image of someone trying to bring all the grocery bags in on a single trip, or that trope of a boyfriend following his girlfriend shopping and holding a billion clothing bags. Thought of a neat idea: singular modular backpack with slots for customizations. The first slot in your bag menu is a primary backpack slot. So a large reed basket, a linen sack, mining bag, leather backpack, and sturdy leather backpack. Second slot fits something onto the top end of your backpack, the third slot in the bottom left, and the fourth slot in the bottom right. Customizations can include a torch holder/lantern, a sleeping bag, pouches for additional inventory, ect. Each customization visually changes the backpack, and is tied to the backpack so placing it down keeps the customizations with it. The total size of the main backpack could be most of the inventory space currently granted by a full row of the same tier of bags, with the rest being filled out by 1-2 pouch additions. So by equipping a backpack and a couple pouches you retain the same inventory space you'd get now plus 1 additional slot for customization. Or you could ignore pouches all together and still retain about 70-80% of your normal capacity while getting several slots to add things. Could even further this idea by limiting the customizations and the amount of them to the backpack tier. So Reed Baskets get nothing, Linen Sacks get 1 slot, Leather 2, and Sturdy Leather unlocks all 3 slots.

Armor stands kinda suck from a practical stand point. You gotta hotbar and manually place each piece on the stand, then when retrieving them you have to grab them the same way and still have to equip each piece like you normally do. This is already annoying even in vanilla, but becomes immensely more so when you get into mods like Combat Overhaul with layered armor. With the space the stand takes up it'd be more efficient to just jam everything into a single chest. This leaves the only real reason to use them being as aesthetically pleasing art pieces/statues to decorate the base with. So it'd be nice to have a feature that rips the armor off ya and places it in the relevant slot for the dummy, then allows you to auto equip armor from them in the same manner. If possible setting it up so it's easily compatible with mods, or at least easily configurable for the mod creators to tinker with. Would make them so much nicer as a QOL tool for gameplay and would make them considerably better for storing gear than in containers.

I found out after attempting it that I have a carrier grade NAT and can't do port forwarding. I'm not familiar with this stuff so all I know is that I'm kinda boned and can't do normal port forwarding. I also can't afford to buy server hosting. Do I have any other options I can try out for hosting a game for my friends? Cause it'd be nice if they could join my world.

I thought of the same thing as well but because there doesn't seem to be the framework for selective hitboxes I assumed it'd be pointless to suggest as that'd be a mountain of work to implement. Status effects just seem easier to implement from a coding standpoint, however if possible I do think your idea is better.

I really don't like this mechanic. Everything else I can get behind, but this one mechanic just feels like it unnecessarily punishes the QOL of having an offhand. I'd have downloaded a mod to solve the problem however there are few available and I'm worried about the longevity of their usability. I'm also worried about some possible instability, like the one that rewrites the hunger every half second.

I started the game recently and have been enjoying it quite a lot. I love the visuals, the gameplay, the crafting, the mods, the multiplayer, everything. Almost nothing I particularly dislike. One of the very few things I have found a problem with though is Hunting. The animals are incredibly janky to kill as they're extremely tanky relative to your damage output in the early to mid game. Prey animals lead you on overly long and tedious chases through terrain and LOS breakers as you chip away at them piece by piece, and Predator animals are so dangerous that you're incentivized to cheese their AI via water, holes, or getting somewhere unreachable. Over my few dozen hours playing thus far one of the things I've wished for the most is some kind of mechanic that adds interactivity to the hunt to circumvent the need for those aforementioned problems. Obviously not everyone sees them as problems, but I came to dislike them. While doing a lot of hunting for my multiplayer sessions with friends I came up with a spitball idea to theoretically solve this problem: A Wound Mechanic. Every animal gets a secondary health like bar that emulates wounds, and all bladed weapons get a secondary "wound" damage stat that applies exclusively to it. Upon being wounded all animals begin bleed leaving trails behind them (purely visual), and are slowed down. The amount of blood left behind and the strength of the slow both increase the more damage is dealt to the wound bar. Upon reaching a certain threshold the animal will then be inflicted with a fatal wound where the wound bar will begin to drain until it reaches zero, at which point the animal will die. Additional damage can be applied to secure the kill quicker but they can also be left to bleed out on their own. Excessive damage can also theoretically bypass everything entirely and just kill the animal outright. If desired, additional effects can be added at this point to make it even more interactive. Deer could get 1 last fast sprint off before dying, and Bears could become enraged making them aggressive and dangerous in their last moments. The idea is to make the gameplay more interactive and a bit more immersive.