Hi! Let me introduce myself; I am Ixhaton.
I picked GZ up around the end of July last year.
I’m playing it on PS4 - the non-Pro version.
I’ve been following this game since it was first announced but decided to await purchasing it until it had fully launched.
So far I really love the setting, the world and the atmosphere. The soundscape this game provides is really good and I have found the best experience is to use a surround headset.
Listening for machines in the distance and planning my routes accordingly.
The visuals are also pretty good and make it for a really satisfying experience when you shoot or blow up a machine.
So after 7 months of and many, many hours in game, and a fully finished original storyline,
I felt the need to chime in with some serious feedback from my own point of view and own experiences with Generation Zero.
Some of it might come across as harsh, but it is meant as clear and sincere feedback, not to disrespect anyone or anything.
(Wall of text incoming, TLDR below! 
)
Game interface and general performance:
Lots has been done the past few months to improve the playability of GenZero and I am very thankful for this.
Yet there are many, many bugs still present after a year that IMHO could and should be adressed.
I will go into some detail about those, further on.
The performance has improved by a lot, truly a lot, but it is far from good.
Significant FPS drops in Hagaboda and the Ostervik areas is amongst one of them.
Also the sound-engine in game, has been suffering since a few patches it seems.
Lots of static, audio slowdowns, sound drowning out/disappearing.
The UI and inventory menu system are bad. Just bad.
Laggy and cumbersome to use.
The 4 Quick Use slots not filling up automatically with items you picked up, it all makes for a very tedious experience.
The same goes for allocating ammo to the weapons. It is just not very pleasant to use and could be improved upon greatly. Why do we need to allocate ammo to weapons in the first place?
Also the lack of being able to start a completely new game with a new character.
Why is it not there?
As it stands right now, I can not reset any skill points or start completely anew without deleting characters or save files.
Shared items and stash between characters is OK, but it should be changed.
A New Game option is much needed. That, or a skill point reset option. Or both.
Machine AI, Detection, Machine-environment / player-environment interaction:
The thing that stands out to me as the second most problematic is the detection system.
The August update and subsequent ones have improved it greatly, but still it could be way better. Despite the X-ray sensors some machines may have.
This combined with many machines hugging walls when they can’t get to you - and warp/glitch into buildings makes it sometimes quite frustrating. Machines becoming stuck on props outside houses hiding underneath windows, making them almost impossible to hit. Or getting them stuck in trees…
It doesn’t work properly.
Also since recently, many machines have no interest in fighting the player anymore. They just stand still, sometimes not even shooting.
Or they simply walk away. That can be a good thing, so a player can escape if needed, but when a Tank simply decides to walk away and not even bothering to attack…apart from lobbing some missiles. That is just weird.
Some machines also seem to detect the player - as said, through walls and start shooting… and keep on shooting… Oh boy…
It would be good to give them a cooldown or a burstlength or something to prevent this.
Because shooting at something that is not even remotely visible or present is a waste of ammo even if you have an seemingly unlimited ammopool, right?
Houses and player interaction:
The fact that all windows in this game seem to obscure visual FX on machines - and some windows cannot be shot through is simply a bit weird to me and I’d like to see it changed.
Why are windows blocking visual effects on machines and why are some windows (in doors) bulletproof?
The light switches in most houses are also partially functional, many do not work, which is mildly annoying when you try to black out a house you are hiding in, for better visibility.
( And; what’s up with the rain/wind sounds next to windows while the sun is shining outside? 
)
Game world, exploration and missions:
As for the world itself and general gameplay: Good, but can be alot better.
I just would love to see many more buildings opened up for exploration!
The Kundsam, Konditorei, Gas/Police/Firestations, Garageboxes, Apartmentbuildings and hopefully many more.
Also; the world could be much more alive, with more wildlife, random events, places to visit, things to do, things to loot.
More sidemissions or even repeatable missions would IMHO keep this game playable for a loooong time. Atleast for me it would.
A few cutscenes and more interactive or visual storytelling would greatly add to it.
Clothes and Character Customization:
The strange stats on a number of clothing items that seem to make no real sense.
A pair of jeans does not give more bullet protection then a tshirt or a skirt?
I’d love to see that system changed or removed altogether apart from Noise Reduction and Visibility stats.
Just because; at the moment of writing it is unclear if it even properly works.
The same goes for gasmasks or any breating type of facial gear (Vraken Pilot Mask).
A few patches ago, a player with gasmask equipped would not die in a gas cloud.
Yet, somehow, suddenly, we are… Gas is lethal, even with a mask.
Wearing one, makes no difference.
And with that, I would not mind seeing some more new items being introduced.
Scarfs, jackets, shoes, hairstyles, makeup/facepaint, earrings, hats… anything.
Combat, weapons and machines in general:
In terms of combat in general; great sounding weaponry, please keep that the way it is.
However, I was not amused by the new Experimental Weapons.
I do not like them and do not use them.
Because in my opinion, such “Fantasy / Sci-Fi” weaponry is lame, with silly mechanics, no matter if they would “fit” into a game like this or not.
Some weapons need some attention though. Especially the PVG-90 feels quite anemic and underpowered.
In any case; Sniper rifles in GZ seem a bit “off” somehow…and could use some love.
The problem seems to be with the gunsight/reticles and accuracy.
However…
I suspect it may also very well be caused by the lack of impact-feedback to the player.
Not seeing a clear dustpuff on a miss, a tracer round or often even a spark on a hit contributes most likely to it.
Weapon and Particle FX at greater distances simply are not rendered (on PS4?), which is in dire need of being changed.
Please make weapon impacts visible AT ALL RANGES!
Switching between weapons is also a point I have to adress.
More often then not it simply will not switch weapons when I press the button.
It looks like the game detects “soft” and “hard” buttonpresses and mixes them up or just fails to respond.
Lately it seems to have been improved, but it still can be better.
Then we have grenades…
Having one stick to your hand and blowing you up in the process.
Patch notes from the past stated that it has been fixed. (Could not find the source, sorry!)
It is not. Throwing grenades is still some sort of Russian Roulette.
I want to like grenades, really I do.
I want to use grenades.
All throwables work, more or less…but not grenades.
Continuing on the topic of combat in Generation Zero…
As someone said on these very forums; this game is based on guerrilla warfare.
So… it could do with DIY/Homemade weapons like pipebombs/nailbombs, selfmade lures, tripwires, gun/bombtraps and such.
Perhaps even a simple crafting system based on that.
And scavinging/looting for parts to create such DIY weaponry.
More schtuff to loot!
Some new time-period correct weapons would be really nice as well, including some (new) upgrades/mods/mechanics.
And ofcourse some new targets to use all these things on. A few new machines… One that creates Relay Beacons for example.
This seems one of the more “logical” types of machine this game could use.
Conclusion and TLDR:
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Overall performance of the game in terms of UI, Inventory, FPS, Physics and SpecialFX should be looked into with the highest priority.
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The detection system, the way machines interact with objects nearby and the way clothing and character customization works in GZ really needs some good love IMHO.
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The world - including houses/locations, their accessability and physics (windows), the living environment and things to do could use attention and expansion.
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And in the long run, the players ability to engage (new?) machines with new time-period correct weaponry would be IMHO a great addition.
And on top of it all; please keep crunching bugs, filling world holes, places with weird floating stuff and such.
In conclusion:
Would I recommend this game to anyone?
At first I was really hyped, when the game was announced and during it’s intial development.
However, once I picked up GZ and started playing, it became clear that many of the issues stand in the way of making this a truly good game.
The weird and poor performance started to suck away most of the fun. And often replaced it with frustration.
And it made me quite sad to see that by 2020 still many of those frustrations still persist.
It has gotten better however, but it is far from there yet.
I tried getting friends into the game, but most of them were put off by the bad reputation GZ has gathered by now.
And by my warnings that this game has great promise but also some quite severe issues.
I like it, but that does mean that it has to improve - in the right way, for me to keep liking it.
Thanks for reading and a sincere congratulations if you made it through all the way.
~ Salute!
Ixhaton
