Feedback on March Update and address to dev team

Hi folks, thought ide share my feedback, opinions and suggestions in regards to the recent march anniversary update and would like to say a few words to the dev team, for quick background I’ve played generation zero since launch and have logged approx 260 hours and I will only be speaking for my experiences on the PC platform

Firstly I want to address the elephant in the room in regards to current affairs with the recent covid-19 pandemic which has shook the world, I would like to wish the dev team and community managers of Avalanche the upmost best of luck in regards with this and I hope that everyone is able to stay safe during this turmoil (I would message the team directly but I don’t want to be a pain) and lastly a thank you for still releasing and updating content during these times, which has been keeping many of us entertained and occupied while under mandatory lockdown/quarantine by our respective governments.

Right, onto the new update, what a change, I’ve ended up starting from scratch yet again so I can properly experience the new revamp of the archipelago and it is very impressive and is night and day compared to previous iterations and I have noticed a lot of assets that were created for alpine unrest are being transferred, old shops now have interiors, the houses shows signs of panic and several nods to the storyline like with the “living adaptations” to Annita’s house and presence of apocalypse machines in saltham, On the note with starting fresh however I would like to point out that the Plundra contents are not wiped while deleting old saves and starting afresh, this has been the case since its implementation.

and now the true elephant in the room, the inventory revamp, once again it is one hell of a change and there has been a very clear mixed response from both ends but I would like to give a middle ground. Firstly with the implementation of the new system I’ve noticed that the looting aspect of the game has became more fluent in my opinion however it can still be clunky having to select individual items, this will be my first recommendation. [it will be great to see the use of either the arrow keys or even the use of the scroll wheel to scroll down to individual items in order to make it more fluent]

onto inventory management and its interface, I believe this is where most of the negative feedback is arising from and I will say I aint to much of a fan of it myself, in terms if combat it is extremely slow to swap weapons in and out of usable slots along with switching ammunition types which as resulted in a fair amount of deaths while playing and general management has been slowed down during the down time in the game while organising your arsenal from the plundra, I will bulletpoint a few

-category system has severely slowed down management

  • weapon maintenance (ammo change, attachments, assigning to useable slots) has became severely inefficient, to fix this I believe a similar system to what we had before where you drag and drop would be more beneficial, perhaps while on the weapons page show a list of attachments (not being used) available to just drag and drop into the weapon, along with a hotbar on the top of the page to drag and drop items into usable slots (apologies for the crude drawing but just to show how it could work)

  • ammunition management is a tad clunky now while selecting the amount of ammo you wish to drop/pick up. this can be an issue with very large amounts, a work around with this again could be the implementation of the scroll wheel while on the selection menu or even be allowed to key in the exact amount you wish to pickup/drop instead of having to fiddle with the bar or scroll wheel

  • I welcome the new weight management system, feels like I can carry so much more, a nice improvement to make things more fluent instead of having to constantly compare numbers would be to implement a weight bar under said numbers, changing colour as its filling up and have a error/warning icon next to the bar to indicate when you became overburdened with loot

-with this update included the new experimental LMG, I have been made aware there has been level caps on being able to use said weapons, I would like to see this reduced to possibly level 15-20

Lastly I would like to commend them on the implementation of difficulty selection, allows the new players to ease in and veterans to go all out, and I will say the new guerrilla difficulty has been proving to be quite the challenge

That’s all that I can think of for now folks, if I feel there is any more I will add, and if you feel there is any more to add or possible suggestions feel free to comment below, once again to the studio thank you for continuing to keep the game updated, keep us updated and keeping us entertained during these times of turmoil and I hope that everyone is able to stay safe and wish everyone the best of luck, take care <3

-Callum

2 Likes

On Experimental Weapons, there’s no level requirement to equip them. I’ve had an Experimental Glock since level 3 or 4 (before the restrictions went in), and have had no difficulty using (or even reequiping it). The update put a level prereq for obtaining Experimentals. Below level 25, your rivals in base game zones will not drop experimental weapons. Though, I’m told the DLC Rivals can drop at any level.

[Quick Update]

In regards with inventory navigation I mentioned the use of the scroll wheel and arrow keys to be used, the arrow keys are already an implemented feature but with the utilisation of W and S

Onto management and looting, I realised it would be much quicker to double click the respected items to automatically move between inventories instead of drag&drop and using the E key to select a certain amount

all that I can think of for now
-Callum

that will be something ill need to check, im not far from reaching the IGA facility, thanks for the heads up mate, stay safe

-Callum

Just a note to say I love how this game is progressing,I am excited to play this game again,now I have had a chance to explore some of the new additions to the Archipelago region, the addition of new buildings and camps fills out the game, (I may have not found everything to find yet) yes there are still bugs and glitches, but it’s clear to see how much work the devs have put into this, GG dev team, loving it!!

I really like the improvements to the starting area environments, especially being able to enter some of shops and kiosks now.

My only thoughts are that I’ll need to take another break from the game until the rest of the world gets the same treatment, and that upsets me a bit. I don’t want to keep playing knowing that old areas I’ve visited would have been cooler if I waited.

Fix the exp weapon drop it’s horrible n a waste of time. I’m max lvl with only 2 weapons the lmg n 9 mm. What’s the point of rivals if all they ever drop is ammo.