I’ve been playing the game for a long while and I’m enjoying myself alone and with friends, with the lastest survey, it got me thinking even more about what I’d like to really see in the future of the game, and because the survey was pre-planed there wasn’t really enough room for all my thoughts. so here comes a big unsorted list of stuff I’d like to see with ideas how and maybe why.
seperated storys per character: The story and gameplay is quite nice overall, and that got me thinking to make a let’s play of it. though I played already through the whole story so there’s not much to show anymore other than running around and shooting bots. Sure I could delete my save and start over again but that just feels plain wrong. So why not bind the story advance to the character instead of the account. Yes the skills are limited and you’re supposed to make different characters for different situations to fill out roles in multiplayer, but in mp it’s the host’s story and only theirs advance anyway. so binding the advance to the character would let you enjoy the story again, or at least add a button for a soft reset. as in all hide outs, weapons, recepies etc. are with you, but the story is back to 0.
A faction system: When you start the game you find yourself without much if any information and the goal is to figure out what happened. everywhere are just messages left by people and machines. With the FNIX DLC came big map changes that showed that the swedish army and police did put up a fight against the machines but it’s still an empty map. With a faction system Resistance vs. machines the world would come to life a lot.
First and foremost the island/s will be in full controll of the machines of course with posts, patrols and everything. The player/s will have to thin out the machines and take strategic points and probably take out a short-range artilery in the area to clear it up for a resistance hide out. The machines will probably still be there, patrol and more than likely attempt to rebuild their stuff which should be prevented and stopped by a strong enough resistance force in the area. (just passive I assume and not really npc resistance fighters fighting actively against machine patrols)
Secondly, machines could drop scrap metals unuseable for crafting that could be used as a normal trade good at the resistance to trade agaisnt weapons, attachments, ammo and supply. High ranking machines and FNIX buildings could be the source for ‘intel’ that can be traded as a high value currency for the top notch stuff
third aspect: fire support and alike. Harvesters have the ability to call in Hunter drops, why not advance that and have a kind of comando machine (maybe some mix between Hunter and tank) that can summon other machines to their aid, either per air drop like the Harvester or like the seeker per siren (though in the last case machines should actually be spawned nearby and come in running when no machines are nearby currently. (because when a seeker sees you, alerts his sirens but no machines come … did he called an alarm?))
Also with the mentioned arteliry pieces above they could potentially call for support fire if the fight goes on for too long or they call in some new aerial drone bomber (mix of Runner and seeker) in return resistance fighters could set up mortars to give you support fire as well when you sign them with coloured smoke. Or per quest you repair a couple of the fighter jets and rescue pilots.
advanced crafting: The current crafting does its job well in the part that you can craft the ammo that you need or want to use. Same with the medical stuff as it can get quite rare and scares (to the point where I made a storage character simply to safe up on first-aid packs) Though with the new found acces to ammo and supplys, the shortage of correct and/or better attachments becomes even more obvious. There are so many different attachments for all the guns and I’m looting everthing I can and still I have only one compensator for my two lmg’s so why not add craftable attachments and and upgrading to it as well. Same goes for weapons (at least upgrading them to level 5 would be nice)
also more supplys probably such as a make shift explosive or EMP granade as well as fireworks and explosives.
Heat map: The machines are obviously one network and as such the network knows where machines are and what they do, in return it should be noticed when machines suddenly disapear (getting destroyed) such things should be investigated and so when machines are fighting the area should ‘heat up’ and attract more machines after a while, either to see what was going on or as reinforcments. That way the player has a bit of pressure while looting or if they wish to fight more machines they can stay and continue fighting until they eventually are overrun. Or they could do so in order to build up a distraction for a mission somewhere else in the area. (potential new quest)
new quest: Everywhere we see destroyed and burned out stritzwagn 109B, wouldn’t it be fun to have a quest line in which we repair one with the help of a mechanic and then drive somewhere to fight a super tough machine. The tank will probably get damaged in the process rendering it unable to use in free play but hey, it’s better to have driven a tank and lost it, than to never have driven a tank at all.
interactions with life personell: The island is mostly deserted apart of the machines though what about off land, on the water and beyond. How about getting in contact with perhaps a air carrier admiral that trys to aid and guide you to beat the machines, or establishing a connection to a deeeeeep bunker that some swedish militairs were able to get into, though lost obviously contact to their troops on the surface that send you to missions (instead of following left notes and recorded voice messages)
living world: Machines from a smart AI are still machines and they break down from time to time, for this idea either machines will slowly degrade over time or damaged machines get spawned, those move towards something like a FNIX repair- and maintinancestation to be fixed. The damaged machines are obviously easyer to destroy and the station could be rendered unuseable as well which would lead to an easyer time agaisnt the machines as well as add onto actual gurillia warfare.
Gurillia advanced: we have placeable mines, explosives and EMP’s but unless the enemy is standing still or lured in by sound they’re not very useful. The idea is that 1. Machines patrol along a path (could be streets could be through the random area) and 2. there’s a hacking tool to get informations about the machines to display their patrol path on the map so that you can lay down traps and set up an ambush.
also maybe remote controlled lures so that you don’t have to be near the party after sending the invitation.
Damaged machines being actually damaged: The machiens have pletny of parts that you can actually aim and shoot at, some have actually functions, like obviously the weapons. But others like the sensors and legs don’t really do anything. wouldn’t it be nice if the aim of a harvester or tank would become noticeably worse after destroying their sensors? or they moving very badly after shooting at their legs and destroying their important bits there?
actually experimental weapons: something someone might craft during the machine crysis, f.e. agaisnt ticks. You could use a shotgun that may take good care of the buggers, or unload your AR or SMG at them, but how about something slightly more sleek, like a low power tesla coil that fryes them and maybe stuns runners or hunters like an EMP and having little to no effect on Harvesters and tanks.
build able companion: With the hacker spec you can loot ticks and reprogram them to attack the machines instead of you, why not make a quest around doing it with some larger machine? (probably not a harvester or tank though.) Wouldn’t it be nice to have one or two Runner dogs at your side? or a hunky Hunter pal? maybe with customizeable weapon loadouts and potentially a few paint jobs and/or cosmetic attachments. In terms of destroyability they may have a set amount of HP and when they hit 0 they’re rather downed/deactivated like a player, and can be revived perhaps with a repair kit or alike rather then being destroyed. And with multiplayer in mind you should probably only let the host have their companion to prevent overcrowding and minion spam.
freely organizeable inventory: currently all new stuff is stimply slapped onto the bottom end of the inventory, but how about being able to either sort stuff by things like: weapon / category, rarity etc. or to let you freely move stuff around between each other and not having to put stuff in the box and back out in order to change the order.
favorit tags in inventory: being able to tag items (especialy weapons) in your inventory as favorits to prevent you from accidently put them out of your inventory or even scrap them. Also don’t take out all the ammo out of one’s inventory when you put away a loaded gun into the box.
challanges: add an option to tag one or two chalanges to have a small notice on the hud to remind you of what you actually have to do and have life updates if a kill counted or not.
more equiptment: Gasmaks are handled differently in various games, in some they make you immune to gases and alike in others they offer you resistance, how about adding either a ‘gas resistance’ recepy to the game that can be applied to gas masks as well as the chalange rewards like the hazmat mask and the pilot mask (because let’s be honest, they look cool, but the gas damage is just too damn high) also the gas resistance could come in 5 tears: 20% 40% 60% 80% and 100% but that percentage could also just last for a certain amount of time before it slowly drops, and resets back to its original after a couple moments outside of gas.
better escape mechanics / detection: Sometimes you want a long battle, sometimes you want to get away, but the reactions of the machines / the game feels quite random at times. Sometimes the time to switch the magazine is enough for the machine / game to call the fight over, other times I run over hills and around buildings, get to a 400 meter distance to the machine and the battle is still going on with no machine even remotely close to me or having any sort of visuals on me.
(also little bug report, it seems like the rocket barrages of Harvesters and tanks sometimes have no spread at all and hit in one single spot, which can be quite devestating when you’re stuck between two a wreck and a life hunter)
more variations of experimental weapons: some weapons are cooler than others, but some weapons experimental effect is cooler than others, why not make an experimental LMG with an overdrive to really empty that 250 bullets in seconds, or an SMG which’s every fifth shot is an weak emp, or a self loading shot gun, or a gun that enhances the bullets with a chemical that burns through armor or something cryogenic that slows and freezes machine/parts.
New vehicle: Mountain bike, basicly the opposit of the normal bike, it has its full speed in uneven terrain and probably a better speed gain to better be able to climb hills, but doesn’t do so well on the flat streets and similar hard surfaces.
EDIT1: New machines: a small repair drone that zooms around to repair damaged machines as they go
EDIT1: a transport drone that can pick up machines and drop them where they’re needed.
EDIT2: recycler: a medium sized machine with the job to salvage destroyed machines and other metallic obejcts for recycling
EDIT3: machine weapons: a smoke launcher to cover the area in thick smoke, those machines are also equipted with thermal sensors to see through the smoke and continue shooting. Or they (and other unequipped machines) start spraying and praying
hot smoke launchers: covers an area in heated smoke that renders thermal vision moduls useless, these machines are equipted with X-ray vision to continue their assault. Or they (and other unequipped machines) start spraying and praying
EDIT4: Crouching and laying: Very often it feels liek all crouching and laying down does is reducing visibility, but without the hitbox changing. Taking a dead hunter as cover, laying down behind it would suggest to have cover, still I often take a lot of damage when I hide behind anything smaller than a harvester or tank behind which I can stand. also I often find that standing behind a slim tree offers better protection than laying down behind a waist high stone wall.
EDIT5: Machines are effected by the time of day and weather. So sleeping in beds to pass at least time for day / night would be very helpfull.
EDIT6: Reaper tier Harvester: weapons: Chemical MG at the front, fire MG in the back, 360° chemical rocket barrage, thermal blast, shields and reinforcement call (but with hunters as well) like reaper tank. close combat defence: super stomp and proximity mine scatter
EDIT6: reaper tier hunter: They always come in pairs. Weapons chemical MG and fire MG on the arms, one with shoulder rail gun the other with proximity mine launcher. They shield each other, one actives his shield making the other invulnerable who can continue shooting.
EDIT6: Bug report? and potential spoiler warning!
Come to think of it I assume the red sparkling means the shield is active though in the boss file it says that the reaper tank can’t shoot while the shield is active, though when I fought one it was defenitely shooting while its red sparkly shield was defenitely sparkling. so is the weapon deactivation not working? or are the shield visuals on for longer than the actual effect?
As i see it, it distinguishes the lootable machines with loot easily.