Oh wow, hythrain, thank you so much for coming back, giving my game another try and leaving me this huge amount of valuable feedback. You make me really happy man! Have you recorded your playthrough - would love to watch it again.
First things first: Congrats for beating the game. This isn't an easy one - very well done! 🏆🏆🏆
I have some feedback for you - let's see, how much you like it, and well it meets your ideas and points for improvement.
Your feedback for the card stack: How is this related to the number of items in your inventory? Is there a bug coming up, when there is a critical amount of them? Sorry, can't see the relation, but maybe it is just too late here - time for bed soon ;-)
The area in reality (I have some reference) is roughly 15x15 km. But I shortended the length of the roads by a lot to make walking the roads less tedious. So your idea here is to make a more detailed / zoomed in map? So players have to walk longer from one house to another, even if it is in the same street, so to speak? Currently have another plan for replayability - or better: continues playability: There are more maps and tasks following. So the first 9 Days are just the prelude. On the current map there is a whole town located in the north west, which players don't get in touch with. So the story could continue like this: You reach the boat, but it turns out, they have too many passengers and too little food for everyone. So your next task is to reach out to that town and collect a certain amount of food and drinks. Another plan for replayability: Different characters and progressive character improvement - here you can find the first UI concepts for this: https://humane-tiger.itch.io/9-dayz/devlog/586768/feedback-quest-5-ui-designs Players have to reach certain goals to unlock more characters and their special abilities. If I go really fancy, each of them will have their own story (maybe in form of a diary), which can be discovered while exploring the world. I am working on the characters next - introducing at least 2 of them for the beginning.
More information is just about to be released. You will be able to right-click every item slot and crafting option - an in-game Almanac is then showing all the details for that item, cooking- or crafting-recipe.
The current state and idea is documented here: https://itch.io/jam/imgj29/topic/3163246/a-list-of-improvement-ideas-for-this-ja... You can even test the Almanach in this pre-release: http://humane-tiger.com/9dayz/ So very soon you will e. g. get an extensive answer for: "What is this Glue good for, which I can cook from bones and water? Is it worth doing that?"
The chance for successful Luring is 60:40 (60 being the success here). But luck is a slippery thingy ;-) That's why I will replace "gambling" by a mini game. Isn't easy to implement though, so I am pushing this one in front of me.
There will be other minigames for Fishing and opening Safes as well. Here is the concept for the Luring minigame: https://humane-tiger.itch.io/9-dayz/devlog/586068/feedback-quest-5-upcoming-impr...
Uff, what next... :-D
For the balancing and stats, you will be able to choose a character that suits your expectations. Time for a wish, if you like: Have any idea for the character you describe, having a slow metabolism? What pros would such a character have? And what cons? See the "Tree Hugger" in the linked devlog above as an example.
To your last points: Haven't really got into the health/healing topic, as you probably figured out. It will be part of a coming balancing and ist also a candidate for individual character properties. You are the 2nd player mentioning the non-card option for battles (others wished they could run/flee), so I am taking this also as a strong signal for some future change.
Alrighty. Hope I was able to pick up some of your ideas already to your satisfaction. I am curious to hear how well you image these improvments will fit your feedback. I promise that none of your feedback gets lost - on my Milanote board there is still lots of space - will compile everything to have it in view. Can't promise to take care of everything exactly, but it will influence my decision process.