Arco II, the bree-man archer, begun his adventure going straight to get Bill. The first levels of the Trollshaws didn't get me any ammo, I thought that it might broken or something, but I continued. I had only the ~180 elm arrows from the beginning.
I got to the 5th level, and had already given a couple of points to Forage, I thought that else I wasn't gonna get any ammo at all and I was eagerly wanting to be my own ammo supplier.
I found Bill and killed him. Forage triggered. Checked my inventory and saw the 7 arrows of unerring I got from the kill, my first ammo and it was all blue and shiny. Looked good, but I was in the bottom of the Trollshaws, my quiver held about 20 common arrows and I had some very special 7 +500 attack arrows in my backpack.
After some tiles and a couple of mobs I was without ammo. 4 levels to go and no ammo. No ammo.
Looked at my inventory and I only had a steel greatmaul unID'd, Bill's weapon was too heavy for my archer. So after some very risky Trollshaws I was in Bree buying enough ammo to survive 13 levels of the Old Forest, my next target.
I hated forage already. But still, got it to 5 class points and hoped I could get 7 more ego arrows after killing the old willow
But it went quite different. I started getting common and magic ammo quite often, I even had to drop my bree-made common arrows to give some use to my own findings. It even got to the point that I was too encumbered to move, in the middle of a fight, because I got too many arrows. So I invested some points in cunning and efficient packing to be in the safe spot, what if I get lucky in a fight, get lots of ammo, but can't run for cover because of my encumbered backpack.
I think Forage needs some fixing. There are several issues:
1.- If you run out of ammo, there's no way you can get more by switching to a melee weapon, since Forage gives you ammo for the equiped weapon.
2.- Go back a dungeon with a switch weapon might work in the trollshaws or even in the OF, but I doubt you can survive a higher level dungeon with no ammo.
3.- Encumbrance. Like never before, getting overburdened can get you killed, and you can't do anything about it. Turning off Forage because you "might" get too much weight is kinda silly, I don't want to miss the opportunity of getting better ammo because I'm already carrying too much stuff, although I do want to decide what ammo to take with me if I can't take it all.
4.- It's really hard to keep an eye on your Forage success rate. In a fight the log isn't big enough to see all your kills, if there are many. And it takes a while to even find a kill, so I ended checking my inventory quite often just to check if I had new ammo, not really knowing where it came from (it would be nice to know which kill got you what kind of ammo, adds to the gamer's superstition).
What I think could solve the issues:
1.- Basic infinite ammo. Very low damage and limited range (2-3 tiles, tops). OR stamina-dependant ammo. OR bows and slings with improved melee damage.
2.- I dunno what the issue with ammo in the trollshaws was. Is Forage dependant of enemy level? Every kill has the same chance of getting ammo? Should I expect that if I'm going through an in range dungeon I WILL get ammo, but if the mobs are underpowered for my level I will most likely not get ammo? I actually don't know if the enemy level of the OF got me more ammo, or the fact I finally got Forage to level 5, or both, or what.
3.- Maybe the easiest way to solve this is to put the newly made/found ammo in the floor.
4.- Maybe a text like the ones of status changes and damage: "You found ammo!"
Any thoughts around?
