What about a “Nemesis-System”?
You know Resident Evil 3 (game), where the Nemesis follows the player through almost the whole game?
Imagine such a system for rivals inside a region and for the reaper for the whole map (or himfjäll, depending on his spawn-position). You cannot see them on the map, you just get an info that they are there. And they will follow you… They will hunt you. That sounds scary.
I talked about something like that in the video, though for rivals. Anyway I think it would be really cool, since it would give more agency and incentive for the player to be constantly on the move. Plus that constant fear of feeling watched.
The main trailer kinda hinted or talked liked it was a feature in the game. Was a little disappointed that never was the case
Plus the reward (exp loot etc) feels more like a reward for surviving, not as a simple bounty for hunting a huge machine.
The times, where players join multiplayer to hunt the hosts rivals could be almost over, as you can’t see them on the map and hunt them. Exp weapons would become more rare, I guess.
Sorry, didn’t watch your video.
I agree with this, the strategy is certainly preset, and you cant do anything about it. Tactically, I use a barn to fight the Reaper by getting it to spawn in the farmlands 
.
The reaper itself counts as lore, but it certainly hinges on nothing, it can be fixed, much lore still needs to be written… Like for instance the bunker its found in has many closed and locked doors that lead who knows where…(just realized you cover the underground tunnel system in your video and talk about puzzles which I like. 
good video by the way.
Ive killed the reaper only twice, it certainly eats my ammo, which I dont mind, but I agree with you. The rewards are low and it gives you no sense of progression, and because it brings no progression, it shouldn’t really count as a boss.
Rivals are kinda meh, It would be better if they grew in awareness and then made their way too your location (within the region they spawn in).
I think you also said something about “learning the players tactics” which would be a good trait, dont know how they would go about doing that.
There could be different things, rivals could be improved.
Changing tactics (especially for tanks):
Changing weapons
There could be more differences in armament compared to the non-rival versions, like an additional grenade launcher (gas grenades, napalm grenades, nuclear grenades,…) or more often the large rail gun, dropable mines,…
Additional equipment
Just some ideas for some more differences so that you are forced to change your tactics. For now, I feel that rivals are just some machines with more armor and more health.
But the greatest change would be the above suggested “nemesis-system”. I would love this!
That’s the number one thing I really don’t like about this game anymore, the whole fix it later mentality. The game says it’s finished but certainly feels early access to me. I’m gonna be harsh and say that those parts of the game does not respect the player’s time and intelligence. The rivals and especially the reaper can be so interesting, but just isn’t.
And that’s a shame because the way the reapear was reveled in FOA4 was so good, never have I actually felt scared by something standing still. At any second I thought it was gonna activate. There was so much potential. But the game fails to keep (IMO) the player hooked and instead uses teases to stuff that probably never will be a thing, or promises that things might get better.
The stuff you have written here is basically similar to what I said. And I agree with it, rivals could be such a good concept. Since the game was initially about gurealla tactics, it would only make sense for the machines to adapt in one manner or the other. But sadly the rivals only defining trait is one name and some rng.
To me, the map revamps seems rather unnecessary right now. Not only for their lack of contunitury but because it feels like they take up more time and recourses than actually adding or fixing old features.
I haven’t watched your video yet, but I’d like to chime in in regards to the constantly changing world.
I wish that the regional revamps were not omnipresent and instead based on progress, time, etc. I started playing in December last year so there was a lot of very jarring stuff caused by the whole evolving map.
When I was finishing up in the Archipelago, I went to Masskar and was like wtf? This huge destroyed Resistance base getting actively shot up by the FNIX Cannon (!) doesn’t make sense to be easily accessible in the tutorial area.
After the Archipelago I headed to the Farmlands (not a great idea in hindsight, dozens of Tanks and Harvesters when my best gun was a 2c Kpist) and then to the South Coast. I could tell that those FNIX structures were something that I wasn’t supposed to see yet, so I spent a lot of time purposefully avoiding these areas because they didn’t make sense. At this point I didn’t even know what the machines were or where they came from (Soviets, Aliens??) but I was able to interact with FNIX’s machinations created months after Behind the Curtain.
Then Landfall came out and it was a similar story where I hadn’t done any of the 4 last missions but I was seeing a Soviet invasion in progress. At this point I didn’t know who Von Ulmer was or that FNIX existed but I was seeing Soviet Machines (!), abandoned Soviet outposts and the Resistance Newsletters.
This is also kind of a problem with the 2 DLC missions. As soon as you start they game they appear in your log, so I was at Yttervik reading about how I wasn’t alone in the world and that it’s been months after the Cataclysm and there are a bunch of survivor groups in hiding
I just wish all the post-game stuff wouldn’t appear until you finished Behind the Curtain, or something like that so the timeline and story wouldn’t be so jarring for new players.
Problem with that is new players can join player’s maps that are done with everything. I don’t see the game being able to flip back and forth.
The last update broke a lot of the base game play and made it harder to enjoy just playing. Look at the posts about how players are trying really hard to make the broken assignments work.
Yeah, at this point I know that they definitely aren’t gonna re-do how all the revamp stuff works, but it’s just a shame that the story is so jumbled for new players.
What stuff did Landfall break exactly? I’m quite aware of the broken assignments, but what else got messed up? On PS4, it’s pretty much been business as usual since Landfall. I just wish they would let us alter the deadzone on the weapon wheel so it’d be easier to select stuff.
Damn this thread just refused to die.
Jokes aside I agree, I feel like at this point so much of the story’s context will feel massively different, due to there being revamps that could be considered spoilers or something like that. A huge selling point of the game was initially the story, but now it feels like it’s being sidelined or at least not having much care anymore.
Revamps were a cool concept, personally I thought it mean they would make towns more diverse and make them feel like actuall towns instead. There is so much missing like schools, hospitals more types or store etc etc. Now it’s mainly here is a tease to a story we might (never) do or some blown up buildings. Not that it’s bad, I just don’t agree with the current way it’s done.
To me revamps feel like a waste, because we are still 3 years later since release, are getting features that still need to be finished or old ones never being changed or fixed at all.
Well good sir, this thread is a good one.
You make good points and plenty can be discussed here in this thread.
Thank you so much. I wasn’t expecting the thread to get so many comments and discussions, even if some people didn’t watch the video itself.