Opinion. I typed this during beta and a couple times since.
I was the very first to give armor ideas and what the devs need to do to both players and NPC's. Bringing back scavenging, which is what this game was made for so that armor mechanic and scavenging could work hand in hand. Scavenge metal parts to fill in armor slots that are one use until a new uniform is attained...for a price. One time uses.
Gear sets should have no bonuses except looks and degrading mechanics, each set being different. Guns should kill, one bullet to the head will kill you, one or more to the body should wound and possibly kill, it will certainly degrade your rambo style play if you get hit and you SHOULD retreat. Healing needs to go with the exception of scavenging cloth to make tiny heal bandages that have diminishing returns, after all, you cannot be continually wounded and expect full performance, in fact, some wounds, or multiple wound could have comical effects, that is unti you get back to the Boo to get fully healed as a safe house would only do so much.
The game should also have no skills and no talents, just a commo set to communicate with division ops and a small HUD, since you do have some limited implants, at least the original hype videos show this. Out in the city, you are on your own until you get to the Boo or a safe house that has limited resources and a full heal.
Combat needs to be tactical, not run and gun and not cinnamon roll game play. The game was built around cover, so one would think that cover is THE big thing, it is not. I stated a long time ago, even before the brainless idea to get rid of scavenging, that a player should be able to make his own tertiary items, things that take the place of skills and talents and have differing outcomes, some comical. Sneaking up and ambushing your opponent should be the rule of the day. A wild direct run and gun attack should have appropriate consequences for all involved. Cover, well cover helps in def, it should never help in offensive power (damage) unless it is simply being used as a force multiplier (personnel).
What takes the place of talents and skills? Scavenging of course. What you should work toward are hilarious and sometimes lethal scavenged, put together items. Being the Boo is your base and cut off, they still have the ability to make great plans...but with what manufacturing, certainly skilled labor is in short supply, and no person on the outside in their right mind will want to enter the quarantine area to make things, so, you have to take the plans you buy or work toward and then go out and scavenge from all over to put them together... and hope they work. Again, comical, random results should ensue.
A game should have people laughing till they tear up, not raging in frustration or using spreadsheets to figure min/maxes, thats pure BS.
I could go into far more detail but it would be lost on deaf ears. This is simply for my sanity and to once in a while say I tried to do something.
The DZ is a failed concept, shut it down or open it up, eventually Ubisoft will make the clowns do so. The DLC's need to be scrapped and redone. Again, I do not work for free.
I know what fun is. I also know the idiotic phrase that you cant make everyone happy, well, you can, and many military contracts later with Zero defects is a fact. We are far more demanding than a bunch of gamers could ever be, we are also more voiceful as you well know from my posts.
The game suffers from dev friendship. Its a cancer in which developers that have worked together and made so many mistakes, they begin to make excuses to cover one another back and the management fails to hire and fire them because of this, they fight to keep the original crew together no matter what, bad ideas and all. The result is the division in its current state and population.
Until Massive gets it house cleaned out and new devs or a new subcontractor simply takes Massive's place, the game will continue on it's train wreck journey and CFIT (controlled flight into terrain).
Why have an EFT if you are not going to scrap your worthless ideas and do what your customers demand? Why? Because devs, you are simply blowing smoke up the communities arses and you think they will continue to just let you do that.
Many of you have some really great ideas and the community managers just smile like a doctor does, looking through us, into the wall as we talk until we stop making those talking sounds and they simply go back to what they were doing before we interrupted them.
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A final note and my opinion and there is NO JUDGEMENT: I used to play game excessively too, decades back, gaming addiction is a thing. The devs are making this game for lifers, this is a mistake. It is your dime and your life, you can spend 8 hours or more a day as so many of you state you do but the game should not be built around these types of people in the extreme. Casuals as you call the core community are where the majority are and where the money is, not lifers and not niche players like gankers/hackers that have found a place to temporarily nest.
No developer can make enough content to satisfy a lifer/grinder and no developer can make a ganker happy, they will always state they have priority over certain aspects of the game and no one else. This needs to stop. Developers need to keep their own childish ideas of being arseholes and ****** bags as they put it themselves on video, off to the side and make the game, not play it, but build it for the paying customer, that is, NOT THEMSELVES. The developers also NEED to be told what to do instead of simply telling the community what they are doing as it is now.