First Impressions and Suggestion Wishlist

[Sereglach]

Put in a few hours after picking this up; and it certainly has a lot of promise! Even if it's a modern day setting (by fiat competing with EFT), there is still a sizable niche in the market to be filled with single-player and/or co-op extraction shooters. Really looking forward to the roadmap being achieved and fleshing this game out. A lot of my critiques (UI) you already seem to acknowledge. Please don't screw it up.

That said, here is the feedback I have based on first impressions. There's a lot of pie in the sky wishlist stuff, here, too, but hopefully it feeds into the dreams you have for the game. Again, you have oh-so-very-much potential.

UI Usage

I can see you want to keep the UI as minimalist as possible, but there are some major drawbacks to what you currently have, especially for some of us old codgers out there.
- Currently having the UI "always on" seems to be bugged. Mine constantly fades away; and seems to reset to a default "fade" every mission. I constantly have to go back, select a fade setting, and then reselect "always on".
- Please at least give us a mini-hotbar of items slotted into our quick-use spots, even if turning it on is just as optional as the health/stamina bars. I don't always have the same items, so I can't always remember what's a painkiller, bandage, or injector . . . or if I ran out. I've bled out once because of popping a painkiller when I wanted to use a bandage, and got shot to death because I was stuck in the long bandage animation instead of using an injector heal.
- In the same vein, auto-reload a quick-use to a new bottle of painkillers, etc. once one is expended; and please consider just deleting or auto-dropping a fully emptied bottle/bandage/injector from the inventory.
- In the audio vein, consider a generic AI radio support. Satellite imagery and/or drones that have a plethora of different visuals give plenty of ability to have an "omniscient" radio support in your ear. Just say that an earpiece is part of your tablet's support equipment. This can say things like "Lots of thermals moving into your area, they're suspicious.", "Team member #X, you've got trouble incoming.", "Looks like they've given up pursuit, for now." or "You've kicked the hornets' nest! Reinforcments are moving in from across the zone!" even "Good job, your main objectives are complete, now get out of there!" and "LZ is too hot, fend them off or move to a different zone so we can extract you." It would all just increase immersion. You can even make the voices linked to your "mysterious contacts" that communicate with you via email.

AI Critique

AI needs help, but you're obviously already aware based on your own statements and development videos. However, I will say that some of the things that need help the most are sight-lines and audio-based cues. Currently it seems as though the AI is either psychic or utterly oblivious.

As for sight-lines: I've had AI shoot at me from hundreds of meters away, in a tower, despite me not being able to see them, because of the huge amounts of jungle foliage in the way. AI should struggle just as much with soft cover as I do as the player. While not a perfect solution, consider looking to games like Blood West, where you can be made aware that the enemy you're looking at is looking back at you (maybe a tiny bar over the enemy's head, or some audio cues like "The hell is that in the bushes?!"); and trying to figure out if you're human or underbrush. You can then modify this stat based on the camouflage value of gear; and it even gives you an excuse to add different camo outfits for the character in the game (dirt-cheap "all around" default digital camo all the way up to almost invisible but mobility hampering ghillie suit for the support player staying in the foliage and sniping everything or "modern ninja" heavyweight-sound-muffling-stamina-sucking all black camo for those night raids).

For audio cues: Again, the enemy shouldn't be psychic or dumb. Other friends of theirs are walking around and patrolling. They shouldn't knee-jerk to an enemy just by hearing footsteps. Consider an audio-cue "Hey, bud, you walking around sector X?" To let you know you're heard, but they're not quite on to you yet. Also, are we wearing 200lb boots? I can tell you all my time in the military, and hiking, and even HEMA sparring in full plate armor . . . footsteps and foliage aren't that deafening loud! You can still let us understand how loud we are or aren't being and still cut the sound of our footsteps and movements through foliage by 50%, at least. Seriously, go put on some good, high quality, Corcorans (even old ones from the 80's/90's) and walk around casually. Your steps are rather quiet unless you're a lead-foot stomper. Thick rubber outer soles with synthetic cork buffer pads and compression insoles do that.

Armor and Gear

First off, we need the ability to repair gear, period. Either let us buy kits or just spend some cash to repair gear at the workbench between missions. Gear we can't afford to repair at the time can go into the stash while we run some prefabs or something. Also the option to carry some plate sets to shove into our carrier mid-raid could save time and encourage us not to swap out rigs every time we find one in good shape.

Also, minor visual critique. Secondary weapons are NOT chest-slung. A primary weapon will be on a three-point chest harness or shoulder sling. Secondary weapons will be on a shoulder sling, pack slung, or hip-slung. Sidearms will appear on a thigh-drop holster or chest rig holster (under-arm or front).

If you're going for a combination of maximum immersion and compatibility, put the primary on a three-point chest sling position, so you can simply lower/drop your equipped primary in front of you when drawing a sidearm or pulling out the tablet. The secondary weapon can appear pack-slung (taking a three-point and slinging it over your shoulder to rest on your back or side of pack if worn), so you at least have the reasonable perspective of swapping which sling is pack-slung and which is drawn to your chest. Then your "holster" should appear as a thigh-drop, to ensure maximum compatibility with other gear/rigs and not interfere with any large weapon animations.

Gun Barbie Dressup is pretty solid. Lots of options for all of the guns. Always room for more, which is clear since some of the newer guns don't have lots of options, yet. However, one thing we need is a better UI understanding of what parts are needed to make others function, even if it's a shop pop-up saying "You bought this reflex sight for your equipped weapon, but you need this rail to make it work! Add to cart?" Another convenient thing would be to strip weapons of nice parts off of corpses without having to leave it functional just because it's in an equipped slot. The enemy is dead, let me pull that nice stock off of his rifle, because I want to put it on a rifle in my stash at base.

As already mentioned, consider camo suits that have modifiers to how well your character works in certain situations. Some examples:
"Default" Universal digital camo BDUs - no pros, no cons
Slate urban camo BDUs - 50% harder to see around concrete/stone/etc. 50% easier to spot in foliage.
Jungle camo BDUs - 50% harder to see in foliage. 50% easier to see around stone, etc.
Full Ghillie Suit - nigh invisible in foliage, 100% easier to see around concrete, etc. 100% faster sprint drain
Jet Black tactical BDUs - Double all modifiers to being spotted in lighting conditions (bonuses for darkness, penalties for brighter lights).

There's clearly head vs. body damage models. However, is there full body recognition? If that's the case, then we need more armor options.

Some armor attachments could be added to pre-existing armored rigs or plate carriers just like addon slots for weapons.
- Simple shoulder guards for typical upper-torso shots from the sides. They make soft armors for threat IIIa that readily attach to any vest or standalone wear.
- Throatguards and groin guards normally come attached to military vests or easy addons.

Then you can have full armor suits that go beyond normal vests and give even more reason to use standalone armor with unarmored rigs.
- Full tactical armor integrating neckguard, shoulders/thighs, and attaches to standard NIJ vests for use with unarmored rigs.
- "Riot Grade" full suits that are threat level 1-3 protection, but provide full protection and can be worn with an armored rig. Good anti-SMG or standard pistol defense.
- "Quad Guard" IIIa or IV ballistic suits (example, UARM "FAS" suit or LOF Def "Sentinel")
- Complete EOD or "mine" suits for threat 3+ fully body coverage.

Weaponry Suggestions

Revolvers! There are some great modern revolvers that are incredibly desirable; and conveniently most of the revolvers will use the same animation set with most being crane arm cylinder loading:
- Include Speed loaders. Similar to carrying SKS mags vs. manual loading.
- Chiappa Rhino .357mag: Low recoil for the power it packs due to bottom of cylinder barrel. Was surprised when I got to shoot one by how little recoil there is. Expensive, though . . . so certainly a late-game gun.
- S&W .500mag: True hand cannon able to defeat threat 1-3a armor no problem . . . even threat IV armor depending on the round/load. However they kick like a mule, even with an 8" bull barrel, and are prohibitively expensive for anything not a snub barrel.
- Ruger Blackhawk .357mag and Colt Python .44mag: Mass produced high power revolvers that make regular appearances for their ability to defeat most soft body armor (even more for the .44mag). Good early game revolvers for whether you want a hard hitting sidearm or a budget hand cannon.

Some more military pistols to consider:
- M9A3: Newest in the lineup. It's heavy (also translates to low recoil and steady aim), but absurdly durable, reliable, and readily takes a lot of mods, especially with a stock threaded barrel and integrated rails.
- M1911: There's only a million knockoffs of this handgun for a reason. Tons of aftermarket parts, mods, and takes the powerful .45ACP round. They're just very limited in ammunition capacity.

While unwieldy for players to use in most cases, consider adding ballistic shields. There are some made for front-arm use with rifles, but most are for door-kicking with a solid sidearm and leading a breach team. They'd be great for the bunker level, that's for certain. It also gives a good reason to put a shield in the primary/secondary slot and have it auto-pull the "holster" slot when equipped. I've noticed in my few hours that I think I only pulled my holster once, and that was an unfortunate empty mag while using an SKS. Normally switching to a secondary MP5 has been far more effective, but that was very early in a run, so "secondary" was empty.

SHOTGUNS! For the love of all we need more shotguns:
- KS7: The KSG-15 is slightly more novelty and home-defense, and the tech required for two tubes would probably be a PITA to implement. However, the KS7 is the more practical "little" brother in this bullpup shotgun lineup. I have one, I love it, and it can take a million and one mods.
- Saiga series AK based Shotguns: Need I say more? We're in Vietnam, where Soviet weapons run rampant naturally. Well, this is an icon that should absolutely be in the game. It's right there with the AKM for cheapness, reliability, modability, and ease of use/acquisition. Good to make available from the start, but space hungry with bulky default mags that don't carry a lot of shells.
- Mossberg 500: One of the most common pump action shotguns in the world, I believe; and with so many iterations, versions, and aftermarket mods that you can have plenty of fun with it. It would be the absolute perfect cheap intro-grade newbie shotgun to put into the game.

Some other rifles for your consideration:
A Tactical Lever Action: There are modern tactical lever actions like the Henry "Model X" series, POF Tombstone, Chiappa Wildlands, and others, which accept any standard rail-mount mods/sights. Yes, lever action rifles have been making a comeback for their reliability, ease of use, and great stopping power with oldschool and prolific cartridges like the .45-70 gov't and .44 Mag (hey, more than 1 gun to use .44mag if you add it); and newer cartridges like the .458 SOCOM are also being added to the roster. Cheaper, high durability, and simple use DMR grade rifles with the only drawback being slower loading.

Vepr or Norinco AK Bullpup: We've got AKs, yes, but what about bullpup AKs? The same compactness advantages of a Steyr AUG but with the cheapness of an AK platform. It'd make a good middle-ground for entering the bullpup market.

VHS-2 or Springfield Hellion Bullpup: What if you want the awesomeness of a bullpup, but with all of the modularity of a modern rifle platform? The Croatian VHS-2 (import/NATO name of Springfield Arms Hellion) is going to take the same mounts/attachments of any standard rail mount system. It's put into an excellent bullpup configuration, takes NATO magazines, and is chambered in the incredibly common yet potent 5.56x45 NATO cartridge. We've got several 5.56 weapons in game, but not in bullpup form. Can you tell I'm a fan of bullpups?

Cornershot CSM Weapon System: Technically not a rifle, as it requires the installation of a compatible pistol to function. However, as a secondary weapon it'd allow incredible stealth gameplay, using a camera as the sight for stealthy peek-shots. Using "fire mode" to cycle whether the weapon is aimed straight, left corner, or right corner. If you ever decide to implement them, the thing can even take a M203 grenade launcher. Personally I'd rather not have grenades/launchers and just focus on the gunplay.

[Sereglach]

Publicado originalmente por UnKn0wN:

I don´t use discord either, don´t know why everybody seems obsessed with using it nowadays, I find it a pain to navigate and interact with and just an extra hassle when you already have other options that work as well or better like this board.
anyway I saw the devs interact in the news section but never here so to me it seems they don´t even read this discussion board, maybe I am wrong, I hope but it is what it is..

It is a pity, if they don't look here at all. However, that's why I said if anyone else wishes to forward this thread to them it'd be sincerely appreciated. Hopefully they at least have someone that comes to this board to collect feedback posted here.

[Sereglach]

A few more notes to add with additional gameplay. As mentioned previously, if anyone would be kind enough to pass this feedback to the developers on Discord it'd be sincerely appreciated.

- HUD elements are easily washed out in bright light, in NVGs, or when using flashlights. Either give us greater control of HUD opacity and color, or consider some stark contrast outlines so they're more visible.

- Put tablet pings and objective markers on the compass, at least when you're in close proximity to them. It would also help in places like the Bunker, where the tablet isn't usable, but we have a mission to do something like place bugs, jammers, etc. You don't need to give us a full map on the tablet, but at least having markers show up on the compass when within 5-10m would help with navigation and completing objectives. Especially things like that awfully placed 3rd jammer spot in the "offices" that's right next to a loot crate and completely washed out by the concrete background.

- Speaking of the Bunker. There's no reason to not have a map in the Bunker. You can put at the top of the tablet, "No Satellite Signal, opening Bunker.pdf" to give a general reference blueprint map. At the very least think something like the maps for the first 3 Thief games. Does it tell us where we're at? No. Does it reflect all the clutter and changes made by the occupiers? No. Does it give us a general idea we can navigate from and the ability to have objective markers/circles? Yes.

- We cannot nest backpacks. All well and good (and appreciated). That said, please consider making the inventory backpack sizes much smaller so we can loot nice backpacks and bring them back to the hideout. Even with frames I can pack 5-6 ALICE packs into another one, for storage purposes. If necessary force them to be emptied before being able to be placed in another pack. Hell, you already have size-altering tech. An empty pack could be 2x2 in the inventory, and with stuff in it the pack becomes current size.

[Sereglach]

Progression Feedback

While obviously progression will become far more of a factor closer to official release, it'd be good to start giving feedback for these systems, now.

- Going to hold off on storage unlocks/progression until we get the new UI, but hoping that we can actually do things like fit ADA packs in gear storage. Also hoping cash goes away from taking up stash space. Mission rewards should be wire transfers, anyway. Physical cash gets "deposited" when we return. We're doing all of this through a computer, anyway.

- Solution for early/poverty play: When using a prefab loadout, you still don't keep loot, but success gives 20% sale value of brought back loot from "forced turn-in" if you complete the mission for the faction. It's good to get cash, the tech for tracking loot is already in the game (we know this from the 20k loot tasks), it helps offset the otherwise mediocre rewards for just completing a mission, and it still encourages the looting aspect of the extraction shooter gameplay loop. However, you can no longer use a prefab loadout to just "explore" a map . . . you must be on a mission for a faction.

- Get rid of buying restrictions by faction rank (and maybe faction ranks, entirely). A better system to consider: "Clout". You earn points for a faction by doing missions and tasks for said faction. Each faction has very thematic rosters of gear at their disposal (better to flesh out after you've added a more expansive roster of weapons/gear, but VLF - Russian/Chinese gear, UICS - NATO gear, IGC - Misfit gear). In order to add new items to your available shop, you need to spend your "Clout" to unlock it. New characters start with a small amount of clout for each faction, so you can unlock some basics, or maybe consider choosing a starting "loyalty" where you automatically get the Tier 1 stuff from that faction.

- Why would you ever unlock items you don't like to use? Simple: TASKS. More tasks revolving around different weapons . . . or even weapon classes. IGC wants you to kill VLF troops with specific UICS gear, or any other rock-paper-scissors quandary. VLF wants you to complete missions using some of their low-tier gear to raise morale! Speaking of which, you mention tiers in the shop but don't tag gear with it's tier rating. That's an issue; and would be even more-so if you implement tasks like the ones mentioned.

- Tasks revolving around raw loot cash value should require you to sell the loot and send in the cash to get the reward rep. It's a way to dump cash for rep and keep the economy going. You're bribing for rep/clout.

- More generic tasks could also be used to simplify some tasks while also giving some world items more value. "Food Tasks" could just require selling X value in any foodstuffs . . . suddenly crackers and beer have purpose as loot. You could even throw in similar tasks for alcohol, art objects, military memorabilia (canteens, compasses, etc.), and more. It gives people purpose to hunt for all of those random world objects. You could also throw in ammo types and medical items. Suddenly you have a reason to collect 300 rounds of 9mm and bring it back, or 10 MP5/AK/whatever magazines.

- Mission rewards can remain small-ish, but maybe consider a roster of items that just cannot be purchased, no matter what. Therefore, the only way you're getting them is salvage or rewards. It's an extraction shooter . . . we need more reasons to want to go hunting for loot. Probably don't restrict basic weapons, but better attachments, high grade ammo (example, add .338 Brass Solid Rounds . . . aka the "♥♥♥♥ your armor" round), or other aftermarket goodies. This could also be a place to occasionally put those art items that are worth heaps of cash. Of course the likelihood these items appear in rewards depends on taking harder missions.