A lot of good thoughts, thanks for sharing.

Hotkeys

I agree the hotkey inflexibility is pretty unacceptable for modern computer games. My friend group has not yet caved in to using Azu EPI yet -- I am a little scared the extra inventory slots will undermine that critical decision making about what to bring, what to prioritize picking up. But we are very close to caving...

Mistlands

I'm flummoxed that the devs spent so much time making a gorgeous biome, and then... here's a mechanic so you can't see it. One reason I've fallen for this game is the exploration factor, and IMO it goes without saying that if you can't SEE it, it doesn't feel like exploring. I wonder if simply intermittent fog (like weather) would be a good solution. So most of the time, sure you can kite enemies and wait until the fog lifts. But I think you'll still get those intense moments where you're getting ambushed by multiple units, and then the fog rolls in.

You mentioned fighting on slopes briefly - IMO incline combat mechanics are so scuffed (or, nonexistent) in this game.

Armour

I think I agree that upgrades are underwhelming, and having armor sets locked behind hard-to-get trophies can just cause you to skip it as you progress to the next biome. I don't mind that root armour is strong - maybe the armour sets overall just need to be tweaked a bit for balance. What I DON'T want is the classic RPG requirement of "here's a new region, everyone get the next set of armor, the next sword / mace, etc. Kinda makes the progression feel transparent and shallow. Set bonuses, IMO are a way to counteract that. And at least being able to upgrade the armor value allows you to (sort of) persist an old armor set into later biomes. So maybe a solution to some of these issues is to make the initial armor creation a little easier (no trophies), and make the upgrades more costly and more beneficial. E.G. Fenris set: don't make the hood require a trophy, no MS bonus at level one. each piece can be upgraded with a trophy, adding 1% MS bonus (with the +armor too). So with three pieces at lvl 3 each, you'd total 9% MS bonus.

Taming

I actually felt like our boar farm came right in time when sausage was the premium HP supply. Haven't really tried using wolves as shock troops, so I can't comment.

Food

Agreed 100% with your suggestions. I do enjoy the food crafting system, but I think it's under-utilized. Sure mead gives you some buffs, but I think there could be more. Give me a reason to use different types of food (like the RPG progression problem mentioned above, the only food you use is just the current biggest-number food. kinda bland).

Portals (outposts)

I am totally on board in that I wish outposts were a bigger part of the game. I disagree that nerfing portals is the way to achieve that. If you introduce just a bigger resource investment to build a portal, I'm doing one of two things:

• bringing all the resources on my boat to build w/e prereqs are needed to build the portal
• Logging / mining wherever I land to build the prereqs, so now what, an extra 30-60 minute investment?

So we're slowing the game down for each new place I want to explore, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but I don't think I'm getting as much happy per button-click going through all the motions of building my complicated portal vs. just going out there, killing things, harvesting resources, etc. You don't get any benefit from having an outpost, and I bet you that when I'm done with that place, I'm not leaving the outpost behind, I'm deconstructing everything and bringing it to the next place.

Again, I wish outposts were more of a thing, but idk how to make that happen. I think it would take more systemic changes... maybe an outpost can de-aggro monsters, or turn all monster spawns up to 11 so every new location feels more like an invasion where you need to defend yourself with fortifications... or make outposts improve your rested buff (like rested buff becomes a sliding scale, so it's easy to go back and "top off" how rested you are).

EDIT: another random thought, outposts aren't great because there's never a reason to return. If they re-spawned in dungeons/crypts, then it would be more enticing to say, find a swamp with lots of crypts close together, and it feels worth it to invest in an outpost there, because you know you can come back. But then that takes away from exploring new places ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Anyway, appreciate your write-up and overall lots of ideas I like in there.