Letter from the Development Team - May 3rd

Hi all,

We’re checking in with another update from the team to let you know this past week’s goings-on, as well as what we have planned for the future. Read more here: https://generationzero.com/en/blog/news-from-the-team-may-3rd

/The Generation Zero Team

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Please make inventory management and overall the way inventory works a top priority that’s one of the main topics as well! Also more realistic to have weapons wheel instead of emotes also top request among all forums

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I’ll second the request for fixes to the inventory system being bumped up the priority list. I can’t think of another game I’ve played in recent memory with such an, awkward, frustrating inventory system that never seems to work right. It’s like playing a game of Inventory Tetris at times, where we constantly have to manually stack like items, unload weapons to combine ammo stacks, or have to reorganize everything because we picked up a weapon and didn’t have 2 contiguous spaces available. Playing Inventory Organization Simulator is not fun, even though it’s buried inside a larger game that is fun.

Also. loading a weapon or adding an attachment is pretty much a dice roll as to whether or not things will work as intended or you’ll suddenly find yourself without ammo or a usable weapon mid-fight.

As for machine behaviour, I’m all for that being a priority. Personally I don’t think the difficulty level is really an issue with machines. Their ability to see / attack / clip through walls and such is the biggest issue with them at the moment, followed in a distant second by their sometimes questionable AI / pathfinding. Due to the nature of the game, you’ll never make people happy with the difficulty level. Solo players will find them difficult, coop players will find them easier. That’s the nature of the game. Unless you can dynamically increase their difficulty or numbers based on the number of players in a game session, or offer difficulty levels for the game, then it’s not likely you’ll be able to please all players.

And fixing missions will be nice. For the most part, missions can currently be finished as long as things are done in the correct order. I encountered many in my first playthrough. Now I’ve wiped my save and I’m starting over and know how to work around most of the mission bugs, but they really need to be fixed.

Keep up the good work, folks. I’m now 100 hours in and starting a second run through the game, and I’m really looking forward to what you come up with in the future.

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I think most of us on console were expecting an update this weekend to address atleast the broken bunker mission and the tweaks ( Ticks drop ’ A shots ) made to PC last week :upside_down_face: , and the missions might not be fixed for month maybe longer ? , most of us are waiting on fix so we can finish story , i can say thankyou for honesty in letter , and will be doing some non mission :rofl: Robot blasting until then , inabit the Devs :sunglasses:

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Thanks for focusing on broken missions first, it’s indeed the most thing to go for first.

About difficulty level, if some players find machines too challenging and others find them too hard, this calls for a classic easy-medium-hard option to be added (medium being the current level).

In general, it’s good to have options to customize the game.
I personnaly would love to have the possibility to remove the radar/sensor showing foes’ direction and alert level. I always play the game with headphones on, and having to pay attention to the smallest mechanical sounds (even though music interferes there), as well as using binoculars a lot felt a lot more immersive. Not complaining though, it does make things easier.

Please, please, if you do put more machines on the map, put it as an option (like, say “crowd level : original - full”). The apex engine is gorgeous, and roaming around is a true pleasure. Like you said, the land is a character. To me the amount of machines is perfect this way. I wouldn’t even mind if they didn’t respawn.

So, to sum it up :

  • broken missions first, you got it.
  • whatever changes you make, make them optional.

Thank you for this great game, and you continuous effort on making your vision come to life. Love you guys !

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I think that the HUD sensor and difficulty level being linked would likely be the best option.

I’m all for multiple difficulty levels, and tying those 2 things together would definitely go a long way to adding to a “hard” or “hardcore” difficulty level.

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This is by far one of the best games I’ve ever played. Sure there are issues but come on this is such a well made game already. The way COOP is designed is how all games should have it. I love being able to just play with friends in a private settings without some crazies coming in and ruining the game play. The graphics are gorgeous and the challenge of bots already has replay-ability written all over it. Looking forward to even more updates. Thanks again for making such a fun game!

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I play solo, and find the atmosphere of this game eerie and tense–I really like it. I’m not running about blasting robots with my buddies, and laughing and cursing loudly. I’m sneaking around and picking my fights carefully, as I have limited resources. I need to play tactically to survive, and I’m happy that you are going to address the horrible clipping aspects of the bots–I can’t be very tactical if my enemies can just phase-jump into any buildings or bunkers, and proceed to put me down [ needing ADRENALINE! ].

While the environment is truly awesome [ day/night cycle is great ], the inventory control system is the worst I have ever encountered in a shooting game. Many, many times I have been put out of action by the horrible and clumsy inventory [ needing ADRENALINE! ].

Being punished for exploring in an open world game is just frustrating. The missions should be more robust, and not glitched by early discovery. This is not so easy, as many quest-based games have the same problem, but it can be done.

Difficulty: Solo is pretty hard, due to many factors, such as clipping and inventory roadblocks, but I’m not a fan of ‘difficulty levels’ in games. I knew the game didn’t scale with the number of players going in, so that’s OK with me.

TOGGLES: On/Off for enemy direction indicators. On/Off for running.

Grab an item from inventory with a single input, WITHOUT having to put it in into a slot. Whose idea was this, in a SHOOTING game anyway? Really??

Use ‘quick-slot’ items instantly, instead of having to ‘grab’ them. See above.

I’m still playing, even with all of the issues. Thanks for all of your efforts.

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Could you all please work on the ammo disappearing. You all commented on my earlier post the other day about the ammo disappearing by saying," News for this is coming very soon", but this new letter from you all doesn’t mention nothing about the ammo situation. I understand that the mission bugs are important, but when your ammo disappears you can’t do any missions. I know this ammo disappearing is an ongoing thing because lots of other people are talking about it. I would rather have a solution for the ammo disappearing than having a few more things added to the world to make it feel more lively. Ammo is very important in a shooter like this. Thank you

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I sincerely hope that the mission fixes include the modicum of bug reports concerning missions disappearing from the log after having played multiplayer. I have seen a slew of people (myself included) that aren’t going to play until this is fixed.

Am definitely glad to see that machines clipping through walls is getting attention and it did not escape me that the words “EXISTING machines” were used. More variety would add to the tension.

Overall, I’m glad to see some progress is being made. I really loved the time I played the game before it broke too badly to further justify pushing through. I hope it’s pristine sooner rather than later.

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I’m chuffed to hear that they’re looking into storage and vehicles. I REALLY hope they’ll check my suggestions :slight_smile:

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I’d rather see some serious bug fixes than new game content.

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Have you read the letter?
They mentioned bugs they’ll take care of in the near future and then mentioned new features as a side note.
IMO, the lack of storage is currently more infuriating than any of the bugs.

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Please don’t forget the trophies

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Not sure what you’re experiencing, but the times my ammo has disappeared from my inventory has been when I’ve picked up a gun of a class I already have like a shotgun, and it put the birdshot in while I have all my buckshot in my equipped shotty, automatically when I picked it up, then I dropped it after realizing it was a lower level. Then like 30 mins later I’m wondering where my stack of birdshot went…

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It went with the gun you dropped

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Exactly, I saw your trophies and I had the same problem as you, I redid a new game to have the trophy of the answering machine and 25 missions good luck to you !

So I have to delete my game save and start again to obtain these trophies? :persevere:

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I’m not sure that works. After finishing the story once, I’ve deleted my save game and started fresh. I was hoping to earn some of the achievements that I should have, but didn’t get in my last playthrough due to them being bugged.

I have several outstanding trophies / achievements that I should have received since starting over and still haven’t. Like killing X number of machines with a pistol or shotgun. I’ve killed a shitload with both those guns (even went out of my way to do it to get the achievements) and still don’t have either.

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Not good, think it’s time to wait for a patch that hopefully rectifies this, so I can claim my platinum trophy :grinning:

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