Hello there! Very much enjoying the game so far, both solo and in co-op, and wanted to thread some of my suggestions/feature requests here. I’ll definitely do another of these posts at some point, maybe with a bit more prep, but I was just playing last night and wanted to get these out while they were still fresh in my mind.
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HOUSE SCAVENGING We spend a lot of time rummaging through these colorful Swedish homes, and while there are limitations to how much variety we can get in these buildings (size of map; scale of towns; level of detail in each house; no loading screens, etc.) I wondered if there weren’t other ways to make these experiences a little more varied. It’s rare to see an enemy in these buildings (unless they’ve clipped through a wall) most likely because of the size of the space, but I don’t like that my first reaction to entering most every home in the game is, “Ah yes, finally, I am completely safe.” I think there should be some element of threat in a building, occasionally, like we see with bunkers. Further, since it seems like the lighting in the game isn’t pre-baked (but hey, I’m no expert) could it be possible to have some homes be completely dark, rather than the default lights on? Or that the use of EMP items can make the lights flicker or pulse? I feel that a bit more variety could be added to these scavenging runs if the experience of scavenging felt more unique, as opposed to the appearance of the house.
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ENEMY RESEARCH By far my favorite aspect of this game, and what has me more than willing to look past the early access elements of the experience, is the combat and challenge of the enemies. They don’t feel like bullet sponges and I get immediate feedback as to whether my shot landed at a vulnerable point, or dinged off some patch of ablative armor. This makes me want a BioShock/System Shock style enemy research system, which could possibly tied to blueprint collection. I feel like the more you fight an enemy, the more you learn about it, the more straightforward fighting it should be (though not necessarily easier).
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ADDITIONAL ENEMY ABILITIES Already the stable of enemies feels pretty balanced, and the cosmetic and tactical enhancements of more advanced models comes across clearly and adds challenge to the harder areas, but I miss the initial moments of the game where it felt like I was at the mercy of these robots and their tools, not fully understanding them. There are easy comparisons to be made between GenZ and the Black Mirror episode Metalhead, and one of the reasons the robots in that particular hour of programming were so terrifying is just how unpredictable yet capable they were. Rather than adding a slew of new enemy types, it could be better (in the short term) to add more varied abilities to the current stable. A robot that shoots a net, paralyzing the player; a robot that disorients players in its immediate proximity with a blaring klaxon; a robot that cloaks and sneaks up on players; robots with dumdum rounds that cause prolonged damage on the player. As the game gets additional content, paid or otherwise, this could be an easier way to add more variety without having to develop too many new assets.
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ARMOR I am aware that some cosmetic clothing items have various buffs to bullet resistance and other areas, but player characters’ health bars and health values feel almost arbitrary when an enemy can cut you down in one or two hits. I think health and damage needs a bit more balancing overall (not to make things easier, but just to make the existence of a 100 point health bar necessary) and armor could be a nice way around that. Four areas––head, torso, legs, feet––that can add additional protection for higher level players, with maybe two or three armor tiers.