[FEEDBACK] NARRATIVE - Improvements and suggestions on narrative elements

Feedback/Feature Requests
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Me and a few others have realised that with the introduction of more content after release (for example the Reaper and the US Weapons), there has been a lack of narrative to introduce these elements.
That means that there is no lore-sided explanation as to why these things are in the game.

That’s why I’ve made this collection thread for people to suggest narrative elements / little expansions on the story that they would like to see to explain elements of the game.

GZ has always been a narrative-driven game and we would like to improve on that.

12 Likes
2

US Weapons
I think there should be a mission accompanying the US Weapons Pack.
At the moment, purchasing the pack is not satisfying enough, many players are describing it as “pay to win”. Which of course is humbug, but I see where they’re coming from: You purchase weapons, receive them in your storage box.
The other problem is that there is no in-game explanation as to why and how you receive these weapons.

My Suggestion:
After purchasing the pack, when the user first enters the region where the mission will be, the mission pops up. Maybe they get a call on the radio, maybe they find a dead US soldier with a map of some sort. That leads them to a dead drop cache with the weapons, which has obviously been found by the machines, which the player has to kill.

It’s a simple, but effective way of introducing the weapons to the game and making the player feel like they earned the weapons, rather than just buying them.

Edit: The same should of course also be the case for the soviet weapons.

11 Likes
3

US GUNS
The current model of having the 3C versions in the plundra and having to exhaustingly grind the guns isn’t doing the lore any good. For new players the US pack feels pay 2 win because within less then 10 minutes you can go from 1C gun to 3C guns, while it does take a bit more time for ammo. That is still removing the progression curve, skill curve and worst of all. Messing with the early tone, at the start the player is supposed to feel scared and like prey. But the US guns from plundra gives a sense of false confidence. With the higer tier ones, as they are part of the normal machine loot pool, it forces the player to grind grind grind the rng. For endgame players it’s not fun when you grind so many hours and you are probably not gunna use the gun later, because the grind has exhausted you.

The biggest problem of all is having the lore on the store page on twitter. Because it tells us that somehow our player found these US guns off screen and put them in plundra, but that does not make sense at all for new players. This is presenting a major plot point about NATO involement but that ISN*T in the game. So here’s my suggestions.

I made a video about some 8 months ago, before the pack even came out. Preferebly watch that. But I’ll make a summary about the import weapons part of it.

The Swedish military has caches of import guns, lore reason could be that they were testing equipment from nato or something. This involves a quest chain with a resistance group in an effort to get guns. However, these caches are guarded by FNIX or are really hidden. Essentially this quest doesn’t have to be anything big but would have to be hard. My suggestion that IMPORT weapons would be their own class separate from the crown system. But they would have the same stats as 5C guns. This way they would be something different yet similar and would negate the recourse to make lots of different tiers of guns. Because then more recourses could be spent on the lore.

3 Likes
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the FMTL STATION THING
There’s not much really that needs to be said about this one, from what I’ve understood it’s something from the military, however for the player it’s just a random external force that has inserted it self in the game. It’s just something that introduced a plot element but doesn’t do anything. My suggestion for this is that the “missions” are given out from fellow resistence members through reused military gear. Because then you have a proper context for that feature to exist in gameplay and story

5 Likes
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US Weapons
The no-story introduction was a bit pointless and tbh it feels a bit cheap. And although it’s not p2w in the narrower sense I think it is since as @JoJo_the_memedealer said, when starting a fresh game you can access these weapons within minutes having them stored in the Plundra.
I thought that the introduction of the weapons would be done by a short mission or at least some sort of “dropped” container located somewhere.

I think anything new could/should have an accompanied mission describing what happened and why the item/mechanic is introduced. The world is vast enough to contain more missions. Spoken word would be nice but some form like a letter is better then no introduction.

6 Likes
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U.S. Weapons introduction missions

From another topic, posted more than 3 months ago:

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Regarding the US weapon pack and such DLC;

With the addition of the presence of Russian Forces in Generation Zero, it feels like it would make sense to make something similar with NATO airdrops or similar being added to indicate that the US Weapons are available ingame, even as it is an optional DLC it at least establishes the involvement of other countries into the conflict.

Even something as subtle as empty airdrop containers scattered across the regions, laying around containing ammo or otherwise general supplies, that bear the markings of American forces, to indicate outside involvement, would go a long way to establish further immersive and coherent storytelling, like it’s been done in other revamped areas with visual storytelling elements.

2 Likes
9

How Rivals came to be

Currently, there is no reason given within the game why rivals appear in the first place. Though, it’s easy to tie Rivals appearance reason(s) into the main story at the end of story line.

At the middle part of the “Behind the Curtain” mission, where player hears FNIX talking,

devs can add additional narrative after the:

FNIX: “I too have changed. I have… matured. I want different things.”
FNIX: “When I first emerged, I wanted all the things closest to me. I grabbed them, squeezed them, tested them. Like a child.”
FNIX: “Now, I want the things furthest from me. The things out of my reach. Maybe you are one of those things.”
FNIX: "I created new machines to rival you. I want to learn how you operate."

After credits roll and player gets control back, scripted personal rival spawns not far from FOA 5. With the rival spawn pop-up and the sound. E.g SW from FOA 5, in the Farmlands (North from Averholm Manor, on the field) and it could be Prototype Tank, level 1.

Pros of above idea: Rivals are explained within the lore. + Rivals appearance at that point gives more to do after mission completion(s).
Cons of above idea: Rivals will not appear until “Behind the Curtain” mission is completed.

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I haven’t had the chance to play the game for a while so I don’t know if this has already been sorted but personally I’d have the rivals and reapers as an escalating response from FNIX to your actions in game. For example killing x number of regular robots and completing certain missions triggers the release of the rivals and then once you’ve clashed with enough rivals and progressed the story even further the reapers are unleashed.

The biggest advantage of this would be giving leeway to adding in new countermeasure to the game such as a roving force that hunts you across the entire map using a new mech built as a modified Swedish tank. Scale up a hunter torso and fix it to the top with heavy machine gun arms to act as a kind ot turret, have them travel in groups of 3 and you would have a solid threat, especially if they crash in on you fighting something else.

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US GUNS
One think is to leverage the stay-behind operations. Stay-behind - Wikipedia. In Sweden we have a conspiration theory about a group called “Arla Gryning” that is linked to the murder of Olof Palme.

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Since the new Russian Weapons DLC has been announced, and the US weapons pack still has not received any narrative, I believe that at the very least, we should have some narrative for the dlc. Personally, I think it’s unlikely the Russians would just give us weapons to help us. Maybe we find a distress signal in a Russian camp and go investigate, progressing through a series of missions to find weapons, and possibly even survivors.

2 Likes