Not to argue, but if +40 inventory slots aren't quite enough, then why would that +5 or so matter that very much?
I do get the point of being able to quickly switch items though, in that regards, yes, it could be convinient, but... it would be better then, to have a row like that, and a row for vanity, which is actually used for vanity, and for quick switch (though it still could be used for that too, with items that change the character's looks)
to prevent characters ending up looking like a christmas tree adorned with a bunch of gadgets. because I think that's the thing what brings up other ideas on the same line too, like being able to hide vanity accessories, which makes perfect sense in that regards, but are just the opposite what vanity is supposed to be about...
The best way to implement that is to make vanity hide-able and returning the system to how it used to be. Some people are suggesting adding a separate row for quick-swap items along with vanity, which imo is not a good idea. Consider new players, who have barely started playing, and see this massive mess of accessory slots, they'll just get more intimidated by it. Already, in the current state, the system of 3 rows is confusing and intimidating to some.
It is the inconvience of managing my inventory through chests instead of having access to that inventory without chests floating around and still having extremely small inventory in comparison to the massive amounts of junk AND getting the vanity accessory treatment on top of that
Inventory management in 1.3 was awful. It got worse. If anything, it should get better in an update and not worse.
The major problem lies in what I've already mentioned in this thread - the further the game goes with updates, the more items there are that you want to keep in your inventory at all times. Now they've made so you have to also hold your accessories there. Adding more inventories doesn't help at all, actually only makes it that much more inconvenient to sort all the mess out once you get to use every single of the extra storages. One thing that could make the vault better it to make it so items that give their effects when they are in inventory (like PDA) also give their effects when they're in the vault. Alternatively piggy bank.
Oh, and regarding all extra storages: in many cases, Safe and Defender's Forge are not used, the reason being the fact that they are required to be placed on something. And they all fill 4 slots in total in the inventory. Would be useful if it was just like in one of the mods, Luiafk I think, which allowed you to combine piggy, safe, forge and portable fairy merchant into one thing that when used would summon all these storages floating near you.
Now that I think about it, another good idea would be, when clicking quick stack to nearby chests, make it so it also takes and quick stacks items from your vault.
Well I can personally confirm that 1.4 was playtested pretty extensively.
The game may have many many more items, but they aren't all around at the same point in the game, so it's not really an accurate figure. Like ppowersteef said, the inventory has got bigger in 1.4, not smaller with the introduction of the void vault.
You must remember that vanity slots were never intended to be allowed for this sort of equip swapping - it was an unintended side effect. They haven't removed any intended features.
They've messed up the inventory management and then added an extra inventory storage to compensate, in the meantime adding more annoyance to sorting all of it out. Seeing as, even though it was theoretically "abused" mechanic that was unintended, why couldn't they have made it as an official mechanic instead? It would make players happy rather than annoy them. It has been a feature for pretty much the entire lifetime of Terraria (armor vanity slots existed since first versions of the game), so taking notice now, after 9 years, that it's an abusable mechanic?
Maybe from the game developers' side it looks differently. But as a player I can very well say that taking something away, especially if it's been there for so long that it has pretty much become known as an unofficially intended mechanic, can make the playerbase annoyed to an extent that can make players just leave (probably won't happen too much, knowing how good Terraria overall is, but that doesn't speak well of the devs, since it can make players think that devs abuse the popularity of their game). However, what gives devs respect from the community's side, is if they take a look at the unintended features, and instead of straight up saying "they are unintended, we're deleting them", they try to view them as players, how players use these mechanics, and turn bugs/glitches/unintended mechanics into actual features. I know a good example, Warframe, where there used to be a glitch where doing certain movement with melee weapons made you fly through entire maps. Devs took this idea and instead of removing the feature, they replaced the bug with a feature called bullet jumping, which allows your character to launch themselves in any direction, adding tons of mobility and dynamism to the combat.
Of course in Terraria's case it's not as huge - but instead of outright removing the ability to use vanity slots for accessory swapping, they should've looked at the gameplay from the players' perspective. What they should've noticed, both before applying the "fix", and after, in the testing phase, is:
- the players are using the vanity slots for quick accessory swapping for a reason: it's simple, it's quick. All you had to do is press right click once for each accessory. Now you have to manually carry the accessories from inventory into the desired slot and then put the swapped accessory back into inventory and (most likely) favorite it.
- the players used vanity slots because over the updates, you have more items to carry in your inventory, that clutter the space. Those all range from tools, fishing stuff, alt equipment, stat-showers (like GPS), torches, and now, with the changes, also alternative accessories.
- the game doesn't have any other GOOD way of quickly swapping accessories. Right-click swapping from inventory used to be really messy, because it often ended up screwing the order of accessories in your equipment section, and now it just doesn't exist anymore (right-clickint only swaps the top-most accessory).
- It still does NOT solve the problem of players using these slots for extra inventory space. Accessories that you find for example in chests (Hermes Boots, Cloud in a Bottle, etc.) are often placeable in the vanity slots, because they have visible textures. Not even mentioning how you can put all armor that you don't want to clutter your inventory with into vanity slots.
Taking all that into account, not only shouldn't they have removed the feature, but actually make it a better one: by adding extra buttons to make vanity invisible. Would actually make players very happy and make them have much more respect towards the devs, because the players will see that devs are trying to view the game from the players' perspective and that they are working towards giving players a much better experience.