Generation Zero (2021) Oversaturated Mediocrity

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28

ayyy I’m one of them, jokes aside that is a feature that should be considered by the devs. With how much “visual storytelling” is thrown around, and honestly to a point it starts to sound like a buzzword. Anyway it just makes sense to have it since revamps have messed up the timeline or at least the sense of one.

For returning players it sorta works until you ask what part of the revamps happened before the invasion and after it. For new players, it’s worse because the revamps actively hurt and destroy the sense of mystery by spoiling or answering questions before they were even asked.

So I keep asking to myself, when does this visual storytelling even matter? if not enough care is given to it’s continuity.

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Do you know if that is something the devs is considering? I mean it feels like the “fix it later” pile has grown alot these past years. At first I kinda liked not knowing what would happen, but now that has lead to the decresed interest in the game. Like idk it feels like stuff is planned but very losely (after Alpine unrest that is).

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I hope it is. Considering we’ve not had a patch for a long time now (and that work is still being done upon the game) surely something must be in the works. It feels like once the ball gets rolling again we can get back on track for more updates.

I get the sense they really want to push that Xbox update out the door.

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This.
This is a bigger flaw in my opinion then the “shove it in real quick we’ll fix it later” that’s been happening. The entire atmosphere of the game was absolutely ruined by the weird sewing together of “Revamps” that all take place at a different time in the overall timeline of the games story. Some revamps take place after the games ending. Some revamps take place before the game starts. Yet, they are all thrown together.

Even then. The devs openly market the game in a totally different way they did in the start. The new color scheme isn’t dark and mysterious it’s BRIGHT AND ACTION PACKED. The new dlc isn’t “a new spooky island that might have a few survivors” it’s WE ARE ADDING 'MURICAN GUNS and A GIANT FREAKING ARTILLERY FOR THE ROBOTS

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32

That is what killed my interest in the game. The stuff such as melee and how, well I can only be honest with this, awful writing compared to what came before at least. Looking at you FNIX Rising. It was sorta easy to look away from, cause while I don’t like it those things didn’t really ruin the game for me.

I kinda thought the weird tone shift and how the story was handled in FNIX Rising was just a misstep. Can go on another rant on more stuff FNIX Rising but I need to hold myself back here. But then the US pack made that vision clear with it’s marketing and how it was implemented in the game (looking at you N9 spin animation plus no in-game lore), that Generation Zero is shifting its market audience. For me that only got worse with the Resistence update as I explained it in the video. Long gone is the dark grounded tone where mystery was the name of the game and now wacky who ho adventures cheesy fun time was introduced.

The worst part is how this is combined with the half done fix it later features. My personal theory at one time it was decided to toneshift GZ in both gameplay and story to appeal to a more mainstream audience, because it was seen that the grounded dark tone didn’t work. But it did, it was the new content features that wasn’t being fixed being the real reason that people didn’t return or get the game at all. The core gameplay loop is so repetitive and it doesn’t try to innovate itself.

It’s that mix of still doing things half done and massive marketing tone shift that to me, feels like this isn’t the game I bought almost two and a half years ago. I get that games progress over time, but I don’t think GZ has done it they way it should have been.

Edit: Forgot to mention that I really really loved this game, even before Alpine Unrest came out. Just the fact that it takes place in my own home country felt refreshing. Hell I still want to love it, all of my reviews and crititsm/feedback videos are proof of that.

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33

As quite some people seem to miss the atmosphere of the pre-FNIX-rising game world: Could @Avalanche_Pontus (or any dev with time on his or her hands) chime in about the plans they have for the future? Is there any interest in rolling back some changes to fix the lore? Is there a realistic technical foundation for several ‘stacked’ versions of changed landscapes that get phased in and out depending on story progress, or does the Apex engine not allow for this? And is there any want or need to get the story back into a coherent, chronologically sound adventure?

And, as far as I’m concerned: Is there any possibility to make use of the Steam Beta functionality to offer (at least for PC users) a choice of several game builds to download and play? Maybe ask around which versions of the game are requested and offer them as an opt-in choice? Some might have noticed I’m playing the April 2020 version as I kept a backup of it, but it precludes getting the Halloween rewards etc, and one borked file would be the end of it… I’d personally love to go back to v. 1.0 just for sh*ts and giggles, and I think it’d be of interest for others too.

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34

This is an amazing idea. I know at least two more people who would love to play the infamous April 2020 update although it misses out on some collectibles and other new stuff.

For example “The Long Dark” has it’s major releases available on different branches where you can play the earlier stages even that one with the angular wolves :joy:

I really would love to play the initial version (for some reason it was almost bug free for me) the version when Himfjäll was released and of course that ultrahard version.

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35

I second that, seems like a reasonable compromise for those who aren’t a big fan of its current direction and wouldn’t have an impact on the audience the game has shifted to.

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Only issue is, that would only apply to a fraction of the playerbase. There are stil the dozens of console players who also miss the old Generation Zero who would have no way to do that because of how consoles happen to work.

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37

Although I really like the game this needs to be said.
While some above critics are well earned and i even agree with them, we have a more serious problem that originated from various situations.

  • In 2020 PS4 players were in the same place as Xbox are now, the difference was that the update finally appeared on the 5th of November, the same will not happen tomorrow for them.

  • At that same date a bug that appeared to some users on at least both consoles has still not been fixed Game crashes when traveling to/from Tarnboda Skans to nearby areas - #26 by Lazur327 .

  • The remaining regions have still not been revamped

  • It´s been many months without an update or simple fixes and Xbox still has not received the last DLC and bug-fixes.

This is not the way to go, most players at all platforms lost interest in the game and moved on, there is zero news from the devs, including for next gen upgrades which some were looking forward to.
They intend to bring some new weapons and features but base building is quite limited, missions are few, the game world is still not finished and there aren´t many players still playing it.
Although the next update will bring some interesting things and satisfy some Xbox users it will not fix everything.

Generation Zero will always be a very unique and interesting game for me, but I honestly dont expect much more now and it´s sad because they could have made so much more with the GZ project.

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Yeah that is understandable. Consoles players have had it rough, but I’d still want that feature of being able to change what version of GZ you can play for PC. Better to have it than not.

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That’s something I probably should have talked more about in the video, because releasing GZ to xbox one and PS4 I belive was a mistake, a great one at that. It’s almost 10 year old hardware at this point and thus GZ has to build around that and like you said, that has not gone very well with all the issues and delays.

With the devs being about 30 people I’m not sure if that choice of platforms was their choice or management, but GZ is self published. Either way in terms of the decision to release the game in a barebones and buggy state plus a last gen console release, I can only say they bit more than they can chew.

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I dont intend to push this topic but studios with less people managed to update games, including on these “old systems”.
2 updates on an entire year are not sufficient, at least not when the game feels half finished and still has game breaking bugs.
Games keep coming to the “old platforms” and besides cyberpunk they work pretty well, there is always the option to cut some small details and features or just have worse(still very good) graphics and visuals.
And the question remains, are those 30 persons actually working on the game? it does not look like that but i dont want to look like a critic, it´s a simple and logical observation.

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I think the problem GZ presents on consoles is the size. The map is massive and I dont know how to properlly explain this well, but it’s like it’s pushing the limits of the console in a badly optimized way. Anyway I understand what you mean.

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The thing about many of the complaints is that they are features which were specifically requested!

For instance, GZ was called by some reviewers as the future of FPS games, since the missions offered you no help at all! The missions were put on the HUD because players requested it, and here we come to the nub of an idea which was great in theory, but simply hasn’t worked.

The theory was that the game should develop in conjunction with the player base. Unfortunately, it turns out that the player base (or perhaps rather the most vocal of the player-base) just wanted everything easier. So the missions are no longer a genuine puzzle, but simply a way of getting XP quickly.

Every single change that I can think of has made it easier to kill ordinary machines (XP helps you do this) and bumped up “Bosses”. I hate Bosses. I don’t mind hard missions - in fact I like them, but arbitrary Bosses is a different game and now it turns out, not such a good one.

If the player base was massively expanding, then fine - we’re wrong and the others are right. But it’s not!

Now you can argue that a perfectly effective marketing strategy is to recruit a player base and sell them new products on an ongoing basis, in which case give them anything they want to keep them playing. But for that you need paid DLC every six months at a minimum. Unfortunately the team is too small for that. So at this rate, the game will be abandoned in the next year or so.

Rivals, Reapers, Experimental Ammo, New Weapons, Experimental Weapons, Crafting, Base Building - all these things are gimmicks. Sweeties for the player base. But. The game is weaker now than when it started. They’ve added so much and ended up with less than they started with!

I can remember at the beginning, sorting through my stuff, wondering what to keep and what to drop (no Plundra!). I can remember standing in a Safe House and being horribly reluctant to step outside because it was scary out there.

It turns out that following the player base is an unworkable strategy. They want the game easier in every respect except a Boss-fight. Trouble is, there are heaps of games like that already, with bigger budgets. There was nothing like GZ.

What to do? As the Irish farmer said to the tourists asking for directions, “Dublin you want, is it? Well, I wouldn’t start from here!”

I’ve said it a lot of times: go back to the original strategy and stick with it.

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43

You could almost say it’s…oversaturated mediocrity. Sorry it was cringe but I couldn’t help myself. No but for real. Doing the whole we will listen to wishlist and basically relying way to much on the loudest voices (cough cough it’s literally right here, that only shows us that they don’t have a vision and instead follow a loose plan. So many ideas and concepts are cool but arent fleshed out enough to be unique.

It’s so easy to think of ideas but even harder to come up with ones that could actually work.

As much as I agree and honestly want this to happen. I have very low expectations that it will ever happen. It’s clear that GZ is going into a new direction to appeal to anyone but us. That’s at least how I see it. I still want to love the game, but damn I cant do it anymore.

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Yes, it is right there. It sounds like a fab idea, but actually, all they want is sweeties and to make it easier. It turns out that it doesn’t make a good game. Who knew?

Nobody bothered to ask anyone what they thought needed adding to Half Life, or Portal. We played to find out what would arrive. That’s what works.

Making a super game is an act of complete creativity. It’s an art, and that’s why most people can’t do it.

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Alpine Unrest (maybe not the cheesy writing) showed a glimpse of what GZ could be. The spooky at FOA4 and so much more, it’s more GZ than GZ.

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I’m not really sure I want to tell them what I want from the game. I feel the requests made by various people in this forum already show wildly differing expectations, and that’s without even taking into account what’s being discussed on Youtube, Discord, Twitch, various subreddits, the Steam forums and what various professional reviewers had to say.

I’d like to see a roadmap of sorts, and maybe a feedback thread to proposed features.

My opinion on what’s here already:

  • Base game was great until FNIX Rising changed the map and lore. Sure, there’s a need to revisit the regions for improvements, but the basic structure was sound.

  • Alpine Unrest was more of the same but with way more polish. I’d love to see the same level of attention for further region revamps.

  • The Archipelago revamp seems to have been well-received (it came before I got the game, so I can’t really compare). I liked the small details they sprinkled all over the map.

  • Apparel Crafting - can’t really complain, but in my version the bonus is negligible, so I guess it’s not helping much.

  • Schweet, Blockbuster, Tubular vanity pack - they’re fine. They are there for those who want them, and some of them are neat enough I switch to them from time to time. They don’t alter the game in any way, and they allow for more individuality.

  • Bikes - I personally like them. They’re not that useful, but they add to the ‘teenager’ feeling. Riding a creaky gaspipe bike instead of an armored truck just feels appropriate, and ring-ring-ing the robots never gets old.

  • Rivals & Experimental Weapons - I’m torn. I love love love my PVG and Klaucke, but the guns need to be restricted to late-game content, because boy do they shift the balance. Until I got them, I was dead meat. As soon as I got my trusty boomstick, the robots were done for.

  • FNIX Rising - can’t really comment on the DLC itself, but the structures mess with the storyline. And as far as I’m concerned, I kinda wish FNIX would have less gaudy taste in architecture. I’d love some more hidden, camouflaged armaments, as lore-wise, FNIX presumably would like to avoid drawing attention (instead of erecting red searchlights on mountaintops).

  • US and Soviet Weapon pack - hmmmmmmm. Can’t tell how they are as I can’t use them, but I never felt I didn’t have enough guns in-game. I’m more of a ‘stick to what works for you’ kinda player, so slight variations on existing stuff don’t really bait me. Some seem to like them, but the Steam reviews are meh.

  • melee weapons - kinda pointless lore-wise. I can see how some people might want them in-game, but imagining a teenager beating a pickup truck sized machine with a stick makes this difficult.

  • base building - never tried it, but what I read and watched feels too restrictive, and branching out would alter the game on a massive scale. When they first announced it, I imagined ‘Fallout 4’-style build-your-own-bases. Some players obviously expected things more in line with Minecraft, Fortnite etc.

It’s been more than a year since various aspects of the game are in flux - I hope there’s some kind of dev feedback in the next months.

As an addendum - not sure if it can be incorporated: Add a ingame ‘gun’ of sorts, zero weight, DLC (if necessary for vetted users only) that allows for marking world bugs. I stumble over holes in the ground, texture issues, weirdly placed stuff all the time. Give me an in-game report button that allows for seamless tagging of issues without CTDs and sifting through screenshots.

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Their general problem at least in my opinion is that their lore is on the store page, wich means there is no in game lore. Your character has the 3C tier versions already in the plundra (even on a fresh save file). So for many of us that already have the EXP guns and other stuff, grinding for the 5C tier versions feels kinda pointless and they aren’t really that great either.

It all comes back to that constant shortcuts, from a story perspective you’d think the weapons packs especially the US one would be a big plot point. Since it’s the first hint of outside help (aside from the Soviet on the base story), but that just gets the worst treatment possible. There is no real effort in giving the players a reason to care about the story, when again everything happens without you knowing it.

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