I quite agree.
Itâs great that they added a whole bunch of environmental storytelling, but to me a big part of the beauty and intrigue of the game is the pristene Swedish surroundings. A big part of the mystery when booting the game up was sort of seeing the ever increasing severity of whatâs happened.
Iâd say that the team should think about how the world should tell the story as well as keeping some of those jaw-droppingly gorgeous environments. Have heavy devastation in some places, while others are eerie, peaceful and gorgeous. And of course, the game does need safe areas for the sake of pacing.
Yeah, there containers themselves are a bit more organized with having textiles be found in backpacks or cases or now having car engines to search through. Itâs why I say thereâs nowhere else to go, but up.
What I still see wrong with loot in general is that things like experminetal weapons or clothing items, a bycicle⌠Theyâre seemingly these gifts that FNIX drops. It isnât us scavenging a component and making an EXP weapon or armor piece, it just drops as this entire thing. IF thatâs completely intended (FNIX gifting us things for killing itâs machines), then at least make sense of it story-wise. Still, itâs a lazy way out.
You can look at it from different point of view. To me they are not gifts that FNIX gives, because itâs not given to you. You have to kill them and pry it from their cold dead bodies. Effectively you steal back weapons and other resources that the machines have taken away from the humans.
But how do we explain the origin for these weapons? Did FOA build these? Why would FNIX just carry those around⌠a bycicle even. Harvesters maybe, but tanks and hunters? They have their own weapon components that are manufactured, so whatâs the objective? Do they loot specific military compounds for these weapons to try and take away all the powerful weapons that are left behind? If so, then why havenât we found those weapons or bunkers that hold these human weapons.
See what I mean - It just needs a good explanation. I wouldnât mind your, mine or anyone elseâs approach in explaining it.
You could imagine that they just gathered them and were carrying them to a FNIX base to be destroyed, just before you stole them back. That could also explain the randomness of what we find on machines.
I understand you like to make sense of it all, but maybe we can get to far in trying to explain every little detail of it. Try to explain why people canât die in games. Or why when weâre shot down by a rain of 20mm fire, we can just put a bandage on and weâre good to go. We know it is a necessary game mechanic otherwise almost nobody would like playing such a game. Finding loot is also a necessary game mechanic, and will always seem illogical that the enemy would let those sources untouched.
Yes, but making more sense of it is better than none. Itâs a game and eventually the theory is going to go down to âSp00ky simulation!â, because itâs the cheapest and best way to tie all ends. I do like it when things make sense and Iâd like for things to make more sense at least to the extent that the player doesnât notice.
When the player doesnât notice the subtle features and flows in a state where things that COULD raise concern (in a dark game) is where a lot of that magic came from when the game came out. It was magical, because it was mysterious. It wasnât intentionally mysterious as you werenât egged on to find out every secret, but rather IF you took your own time to dig in to things and observe your surroundings, youâd get a sense of reward for knowing/finding out more.
I really hope you arenât suggesting that this should be ignored or that this aspect isnât worth expanding upon, because everythingâs worth expanding upon. There are so many loose elements currently in the game that thereâs just plenty of room to solidate each mechanic and create a game with gameplay features that last more than looter-shooter. I would just assume youâre worried I may be egging on too harsly on some of these aspects, which I understand. I donât mean to come off as angry, but I am fed up, so Iâm just exposing every doubt in my mind, so that at least something gets picked up on. To my surprise a certain chunk of people would agree that they want something gritty and tactical, rather than lootey-shootey. But I wouldnât know how many are in the same boat if me or others didnât raise concern.
Every little detail doesnât need explanation, but the details mentioned so far arenât so little. They may not be a glaring issue like a crash, but alongside with other small problems, it piles up to a big one.
No no, Iâm saying that with imagination, everyone can find a explanation that they find acceptable to keep enjoying the game. I was hoping that I could make you see it that way. Itâs sad you are fed up, and loosing interest in the game, knowing how much you liked it. Although I am concerned that the game goes in a direction that is totally different than the game I chose, I still have interest in it because I am curious what the future will bring. Although I would have rather liked the game to not have periodically updates and DLCs, but a Generation Zero 1, Generation Zero 2, etc.
The loosing of interest has imho also a lot to do with getting bored while waiting on a new expansion. Normally when I play a game, I finish it and start a new one. This never ending is a new experience for me. I donât like looter-shooter type of games, I too like to experience the story.
I know what you mean. Even after the story is done, I was able to generate 200 hours purely to speculate and observe the storytelling. I think I reached 40 hours when I was done with the story the first time, but I re-did and speedran events afterwards with fresh saves. It may have soiled that experience, because I was hunting confirmation and footage for videos, otherwise my own memory doesnât sound like a good source for my claims in theory.
Still, if you havenât⌠Thereâs a way to extend the lifetime for the game if you set yourself with arbitrary restrictions. A fresh save, story is allowed, no adrenaline shots, only your own inventory, but plundra is allowed at a chosen location. No deaths and guerilla. It was so much fun, but that well has run dry for me too. Still, I also anticipate news from the Devs. I donât give up easily on these games and one good example I have my hopes up about is APB⌠The game that for 6 years promised an engine upgradeâŚ
I just donât understand:
Are the extreme changes to the landscape just the devs realising and completing their vision for how this game was always supposed to look (doubt)
Or are the FNIX rising additions more like a destructive retcon ruining original content in favour of new content.
It feels like weâre living in an evolving world, like some MMOs do, but if you were present before these recent evolutions then youâve missed out and will never get to experience them.
I donât even have the FNIX Rising DLC and yet this FNIX stuff is all over my map.
Expanding on the same pointsâŚ
Marshlands are practically barren (You can stroll through them for 20 minutes unable to find a single robot and without seeing anything more interesting than a tree), and yet FNIX Rising DLC crammed stuff into South Coast overwritting some beautiful and eerie environmental storytelling with the extreme sci-fi FNIX stuff and making the region practically inaccessible to low level players due to it danger, while leaving it full with the original low-mid level quests?
Current state of the game seems like a confusing mess for new players, like it only exists for veterans. Yet surely it could have been preserved for both?
There is no way to experience the original South Coast, why would they burn something like that, that took so much work to carefully craft?
Basically, why not just give the original map to people if they donât have FNIX Rising DLC installed / âenabledâ, and when youâre actually ready to play FNIX rising stuff allow people to enable it.
Most people buying the game have no idea that youâre supposed to play the base game then progress to Alpine then come back and see the changes that FNIX made and play that story out. Current state of the game: unplayable for all but end-gamer grinders.
So how do they expect to make new sales? And yet theyâre adding more end game content this month?
Itâs neither of the two. Instead, view GZ as âevolving, continuous gameâ. (Similar to Windows 10, which isnât a completed product, but instead is a live service.)
Every map revamp update, doesnât bring the game closer to what devs initially visioned GZ to be, but instead are progressing the time and thus, showing changes in GZ.
Vanilla game took place day or two after d-day events (machine takeover), and game world also reflected that. All was just abandoned, there was no-one around.
Himfjäll takes place 1 month after d-day events. Since itâs on itâs own island, itâs relatively easy to differentiate from the main island.
FNIX Rising takes place 2 months after d-day events. And all the new map revamps, are also brought to the date of FNIX Rising, showing the battle torn world, 2 months after d-day events.
Since the game world revamp isnât complete, as of yet, date in GZ is:
1-2 days after d-day - Forest, Mountains, Marshlands, North Coast
1 month after d-day - Himfjäll
2 months after d-day - Archipelago, Farmlands, South Coast
There are already several such events in the game, that older players did get to experience but anyone new joining in, will miss out.
Here are some (click here to read)
All houses/farms intact. Now only few remain intact (boarded up) and even fewer are the ones you can enter.
FOA 2 doors are now completely open. Before, they were shut tight, producing mystery about it.
Skinnarbol Crater forming. There used to be farmlands in place of it.
I canât play with random people anymore. Everyone run around with anoying experimentals that in my opinion kills the fun in the game. They are by far the worst thing that happened to the game.
I like the reaper because it gives me a hard fight but I donât like rivals. Because you canât kill them if you want the reaper to spawn. And since Iâm there to fight the machines it feels stupid to leave them roaming around when I could take then out easy.
The plundra was a bad thing. It was more fun when you had to make difficult choices on what to keep and what to throw. I play Without plundra but random players do so no mp with uknown people for me anymore because of that and experimentals
But I do like the damage in the world. War makes that happen and the world was to perfect at start. And that there is more corpses now. Make it feel more like a war is going on.
But when machines can destroy everything including buildings how does the upcoming base building fit into this world. Fortunately the things the devs implement nowadays are less intrusive and more in the form of story telling.
I agree. Since I got the exp Pvg I stopped playing my Guerilla char immediately. The whole game becomes too easy. I immediately did a save-wipe and started fresh with the goal to not use any exp. weapon. And the reaper is more a patch to this problem but no real fix (making the enemies harder the higher you level would see like a better way to go here, but then the 1%-ish bonuses for the clothes make even less sense⌠dâoh!). The endgame becomes way too easy with those weapons. (Btw. I think the reaper should have a probably to spawn when killing a rival. The higher the region level, the more likely the probability. But it should not be based on a level as a threshold.)
I havenât looked in to base building. Not sure how I feel about it yet. As the game is now with a plundra in every safehouse I honestly donât see a reason for a specific base. But I do like the thought of battle defending a place.
But destruction of my base is no problem. After a battle stuff gets destroyed. Just get out in the world and search for new stuff to repair and improve. But weâll see when itâs out how it works.
Having heard nothing about this game prior to finding it on the Xbox Store a couple weeks ago, I have to say I am thoroughly enjoying my time spent playing the game as it stands right now.
Iâm playing with one buddy almost exclusively, and we play on Adventure as a couple of filthy casuals who are grateful for access to those storage boxes and crafting stations.
Obviously everyone has their own ideas of what it fun, so Iâm not here to say those who want the super-hardcore aspects to return are wrong. But I would never had played as much if I was limited to only 50kg and had no where to store items for later and if death had such harsh consequences.
So hereâs a proposal: the difficulty tiers should change those aspects. Adventure can then be truly casual and allow for much more of the exploration game play with increased levels so players can experiment with multiple classes of builds.
Then as players choose higher difficulties, the game would take away certain aspects to increase the challenge appropriately.
On the highest tier, they could go back to only being able to carry a set weight limit and not having any outside storage, deaths carrying penalties, etc.
I think the problem is mainly the endgame difficulty. While the start is cruel and unforgiving on Guerilla it becomes too easy later on especially with the exp. weapons. Limiting the carrying capacity, no storage and death penalties donât change much in this regard. If you acquire the exp. PVG and the exp. Kvm59 with 5* magazines nothing is hard anymore. The toughness of the machines would be needed to change.
Btw. this topic is mainly about environmental changes and story-telling in the ongoing updates.
I happen to love those revamps, and Iâm sure I am not alone. In a war things get destroyed. And sure, I understand that some people would like to keep everything nice an beautiful, but that does not mean that the devs made a mistake with the revamps, just because some people happen to dislike the devastation.
I can see, that when time passes (with each new update), young trees and bushes can start to repopulate the devastated area, and make it less barren again.
But when machines can destroy everything including buildings how does the upcoming base building fit into this world. Fortunately the things the devs implement nowadays are less intrusive and more in the form of story telling.