I did try all the shrine options, the binding was really helpful getting back in quick. Also I really liked the Align the Stars pipe mini game, it was more complex than the tutorial lead me to believe :D. As soon as I closed the counsel window I immediately forgot which key went with which door lol. Also I did notice the equip better/worse messages, I was more thinking after swapping weapons abunch, going out to fight, then coming back to the weapons I left behind to get an undamaged one I had to go pick up each one to find out which was the best. The new effect visual for equip you showed is very helpful tho!
Thanks for sticking with me! <3
I still think, I can offer some improvements ...
Here's a small hint, though: a cracked Weapon doesn't do any less damage, just like a cracked Shield still offers full protection, it's just an indicator, that it'll break soon. Will probably include another Tutorial teaching about this, but won't pop up until something breaks (don't wanna frontload too much information):
If an Item cracks, depends on how much Damage Potential it dishes out (for Weapons), or how much Damage Potential it receives (for Shields). So Ghouls, who have really high Damage Potential even when they have just 1 HP left and therefore aren't much of a threat to you, still maintain their Damage Potential, so a hit from them is still more likely to crack a Shield, than from, say a full Health Deep One, who have high Health, but very low Damage Potential.
So dropping Items midfight to avoid unneccessary hits, and finishing hurt enemies off with the Whip, is a legit tactic. It's a bit of a gamble, though, because the farther you advance in the game, the more likely Enemies are apt to "catch you off guard" when you drop an Item, so you gotta be sure, that you can take that Hit, and still have enough HP left to finish them off.
About that thing having to pick up a Weapon/Shield/Consumable again to see what type it is ...
You got me thinking here. Now, the primary reason it has been implemented this way, is that the Classic Kalawaum, which this game is based on, handled it this way. Actually I've once had an iteration, where I was displaying the actual Weapon/Shield/Consumable-Class lying on the ground, but it looked bad and cluttered and was too much information to process with one glance, and then I also liked how you had to remember certain stuff to play effectively.
Thus was gaming in the 90s. Now, the more I think about it, hitting a healthy middleground between Aesthetics, Retro-Tribute and modern day QoL-concession might be appropriate. Having some ideas here, I think I'll make it so, that after having used the Map, for the remainder of the turn ALL Items around you will display their actual Class!
Would still be reasonable restrictive, because in every Region you have to find the Map first AND activate all Lightsources to use it effectively, and using the Map also costs a Turn so you can’t just repeatedly hit [M] during Combat, but outside of Combat this feature would become a cool ability like Detective Vision in WITCHER 3, lol.