There is actually zero need for the hammer, its there only to annoy the hell out of ya.
a) you have to carry it everywhere since you cant place a single building block without it.
b) you want to remove a block and put it back and have to run all the way back to your building hammer
c) blocks that you remove and replace often you just have to keep your hammer in a nearby chest.
This patch was a lot about quality of life and has some major improvements. The building menu is one of them, but its totally diminished by the need of the building hammer.
Remove the hammer and make the building menu and building options available without the hammer.
Also bring back block inspection for PC users without the need to use repair hammer. We could press hold Tab to inspect the condition of a building block. Return this ability please.
ROFLOL…The things you point out are the reason WHY it exists. So, every point that you made is a PLUS for having it. You should NOT be able to just randomly, with no tool or craftmanship be able to CRAFT masonry. So, thanks for pointing out why they added it. Now everything you craft needs a tool or an artisan to create things…with the exception of minor handcrafting.
ROFLOL…
Everything you pointed out, e.g. a) having no tool; b) having no craftsmanship
doesnt give a single reason WHY it exists.
This is not a building sim game. You need materials in your inventory to build and that is enough. Your point of no craftsmanship makes zero sense. What craftsmanship are you on about? You have a knowledge/feat spent = you have the craftsmanship to build.
We already have building restriction by need of benches. Thats plenty as it is. Construction Hammer wasnt added to add realism, it was added coz it opens additional construction menu for the console users due to limitation of the keys/buttons on the controller. PC users dont need that at all
PLEASE GET RID OF THE poo HAMMER! HOLY COW THIS IS A DOWNGRADE!!! or at least… leave the old way of building intact and have the poo hammer be optional… good bleeping lord why…
He did NOT say you shouldn’t need the craftsmanship (.ie knowledge). He said get rid of the hammer. So it would be exactly like it is now but just maybe press B instead of equipping a hammer. Press B again to exit the mode. Or, something like that. You would sill be limited by all the current limits we have now - just no hammer item.
Mate, I got news for you if you think a hammer is capable of all the building we do in this game.
Spoiler: It’s really nowhere near enough.
You’d need shovels, trowels, chisels, saws, axes, knives, awls, buckets. That’s just off the top of my head. If you think it’s done with a Hammer and your bare hands, you don’t know the first thing about construction.
It does seem silly to force a tool when the tool isn’t used. Just have a menu to pop up and remove the hammer. Unless it’s getting durability and getting destroyed after you craft so many walls, then it serves no purpose.
I like the building hammer. What I didn’t like is that they changed button to dismount and slide from clifs, but I’ll get use to it!
The reason I like the building hammer is because I can see and fix really fast some things without scrolling for minutes!
Sorry guys!
By pressing B (build menu) you essentially equipping invisible construction hammer and you get all the current options. The only thing changed is that you dont need to carry the damn think everywhere with you
We can skip discussions about why do player needs to hold a hammer in his hand when he is instantly pulling building blocks out of thin air, because common sense is boring. However, there also is an interesting part - “game designer” at FUNCOM conveniently forgot that game had already had a bunch of construction hammers. But of course those were no good for $NEW$ construction system
I don’t think having to carry the hammer is terrible, though it does seem like having a shortcut for it would be even simpler. As to the reason they went this route I can only speculate, could be it was simpler to develop, could be it provides behind-the-scenes functionality needed later. Could just be a design decision.
If the construction and repair hammers could be merged at least…
This one would find the whole affair less tedious.
Besides, this one would much rather imagine smiting the black ice into the insulated wood with an uru me-, er… Starmetal hammer than some janky thing made out of greenwood and cord…
I still don’t want to touch anything, maybe the triangle button now has new things to do so I prefer to first play a bit the new update and then decide for these actions. Other than that, it’s a blind system that bothers me, a habit that can be changed.
It’s just me that I am difficult to change from now on . Even to the wheel of choice I have specific places for everything, if I change positions I have issues…
“You can’t teach to an old dog new tricks”, but that’s my fault I guess, nobody else’s!
Yes it does unclutter indeed. However what it also is doing is it forces you to carry materials instead of ready blocks. I have an issue remembering what materials I need to bring when I have to place one object. Before I would just run to my resources, build what I need then place it. Or pick ready blocks and place it. Now I have to either take too much materials (as I never remember the exact number of materials required) and then run back and drop whats left, or write down exact number of materials needed. This is very tedious and just bad design.
We have one part of life improved, but the other ruined so we cant enjoy what was improved
Pretty sure the hammer is for consoles, since it’s not an option to just press a key on your keyboard to bring up a menu. It’s limited to a few buttons, and having a unique tool makes that less of an issue. That being said, a better idea is to simply make the hammer weigh nothing. I know it goes against their plan to manage inventory, but if we’re keeping it on us at all times, it shouldn’t encumber us. Just a thought.
Until I took a couple minutes to sort out my usual left-handed-gamer keybind problems. Within about half an hour I was hooked, it’s just sooo much faster to build pretty much anything.
My only complaint is that the Decorations section needs much better categorization because some categories are big enough to require scrolling to view everything, whereas others aren’t even a full row of objects.
As for the hotbar slot, at least we now only need to swap out 1 item when going from building to adventuring instead of swapping out everything for the particular blocks we’re using right at that moment. To me, that’s a huge QOL improvement. I just wish they’d make it so the Construction and Repair Hammers were merged into a single tool – it would make checking stability and maintenance a lot less of a hassle.
I can see your complaint about having to carry materials – especially for decorations. What would be nice is if those materials could be drawn from nearby chests & benches or even the inventory of a follower. I’m sure someone could make a mod that can do such (if one doesn’t already exist), but that still leaves Official and Console players wanting.
But of course those were no good for $NEW$ construction system 
. Even to the wheel of choice I have specific places for everything, if I change positions I have issues…