Greetings.
The main thing that has been sort of putting me off from playing the game more, is the game's crafting/item system, and how it handles item properties in general. While this system makes absolutely perfect sense when it comes to balance and strategic/tactical gameplay, if you think about it, it doesn't really make all that much actual, real world sense.
Now, bear in mind, again, I do perfectly realize that the current system exists for a reason, and a very good one, but there are a few things that I have an undying need to point out.
The thing is, well, let's take a look at boot enhancements. Those are some pretty sweet enhancements, right? It sort of sucks that you can't have all of them at the same time. But... why? In real world, it would make perfect sense to be able to put all of those enhancements on a real boot. Granted, it might be a bit hard to get used to wearing them, but I think it's perfectly feasible. The only thing that's really questionable would be that the spikes and serrated blades take the same space on the boot, but you could have the spike on the front and serrated edges on the side of the front (which is where you'd want them, as you can't really cut with a direct kick, rather, you have to sort of scrape the blades on the opponent's flesh). But as for the springs and plates, I really see no issue as to why they couldn't exist alongside eachother at all.
There's also, for example, padding. They have different properties, yes, but I don't think it should be too hard for a good craftsman to make padding that has all of these properties at the same time, or maybe make multi-layered padding with two types of padding that have two properties each.
And what about goggle lens? Again, it seems like it should be no trouble at all to make lenses that have all of those advantages combined. You could make the argument that it would be technically incredibly complex to do, but it seems that all of those lenses seem to do pretty much the same thing anyway, only with slightly different internal programming (and of course, different names and stat bonuses)
This is what's bothering me, throughout my play I cannot stop thinking "But, why shouldn't I be able to do this?". I mean, at some points it of course DOES make sense that you cannot combine things together, like for example different types of leather or metal, but for many other things, like for example different types of carrier vests which certainly could be made to encompass properties of multiple various carrier vests (or possibly even all of them), it just leaves me a tad disappointed.
By far, the silliest example of this are the overcoats. Why couldn't you just take a kevlar/blast (by the way, again, it makes little real-world sense to separate these into different properties) overcoat, and then make it easier to sneak in by...
.
.
.
.
.
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painting it black
:OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
instead of using the regular black overcoat.
Of course, I realize that it's rather problematic right now to pretty much completely overhaul the crafting system so late in the game development, and don't get me wrong, the crafting system you created is absolutely fantastic in gameplay terms. It does a really good job of making you decide on what to do, it creates a great sense of strategic gameplay, and of course, balances things out to prevent you from becoming too powerful. But I can't help thinking that there should a better way to do this than sort of forcing irrational limitations. Maybe have a system where the player can through improving his crafting skills/perks unlock more slots for item materials/improvements while crafting, but again, it's probably a bit too late for that. Still, it would be nice to at least see something like this in your future projects, if you agree.
Thank you for sticking with me.
