As a normal player would, I have my own nit-picks and issues with the game. The difference being that I actually have a degree in Game Design, so it's not just normal players who are voicing issues with the following, but people who are trained in this as well.
I've tried to make it easy to read, and explain my reasoning, as well as provide possible solutions. As someone who has to deal with bug reports, I know how someone saying, "this is awful" isn't nearly as useful as someone saying, "this is awful, here's why, and here's some ideas on how to fix it"
- A Flashlight/Torch - For the love of all the is holy, please add a toggle for the torch. The function is already in the game, as there are trigger brush volumes in caves the make it toggle, but why was this not added as a key bind by default? There are a LOT of instances where it would be nice to have the ability to brighten an area.
- Animal Corpses are Stupidly Hard to Find - after killing animals, the very slight white-flash overlay is ridiculously hard to see, even at night, and makes finding the animal corpse nearly impossible if they die out of sight, such as in a bush, behind a hill/tree. I'd make the white circle loot icon that appears on toolboxes/chests appear over the corpse, or make the loot flash overlay easier to see. Someone below mentioned that they appear on the compass, but this isn't always the easiest solution to find the corpse.
- Add a Toggle for Free-Look Mode in Helicopters - Why this isn't already added, I have no idea, because it's just as simple as tying a Boolean to the user config and putting it in the options menu.
- Mission Replay - The option to choose a mission in the log and replay it would go a long way towards the massive lack of content to do after completing the game. Even having a new game mode where you keep your skills & gear, but reset everything else would be nice. Like this week's Pickup Blowup challenge being neigh-impossible because I've finished the game already.
- HUD Toggle Hot Key and/or Save Custom - Self-explanatory. I have a bunch of HUD settings off by preference, and the game recognizes this and makes a temporary third option named 'Custom'. However, when I want to take screenshots and set the option to 'All Off', it deletes my 'Custom' settings so I have to set them all over again. A hot key, or having it write your Custom off/on settings to the config so it doesn't remove said setting when you toggle the HUD via the options would be nice.
- Add Subtitles to the Radio News Broadcasts - These don't have subtitles for some odd reason, so when I'm trying to listen to how Moscow was bombed with millions of casualties, and everyone around me is talking non-stop, combined with the audio of that overlaid over the radio, it makes it almost impossible to get an exact understanding of what the hell they're saying.
- Radio Off by Default in Vehicles - Wildlands added this after launch. It would be nice to have it here as well, because I play with music disabled.
- Arcade Co-Op Public Matches - You can join random deathmatch games, but not co-op, which means I can't do any of the co-op stuff normally because none of my friends want to play it.
- Split Off Head wear & Eye wear - This doesn't make any sense to me, because even Division and Wildlands do this. Why this design choice is absent here I don't know, but it would be nice to be able to wear sunglasses with a cowboy hat, instead of one or the other.
- Buying Parts of Costumes Doesn't Discount the Full Set - For example, if you buy the gloves to a costume, the price of the whole outfit doesn't drop. Even if the price drop isn't equal to the price of the single part, anything would be nice. Right now there's no enticement to buy parts, since you lose money in the long run.
- Launch Parameter to Skip the Bloody Intros - Right now the only way to do it is to use a hex editor and/or cheat program, which is just bad mojo. The other games have it, so why was it removed here?
- Open Game Still Requires Invites - Not sure why this is, but setting 'open lobby' to your single-player game to allow friends to co-op doesn't work. You still have to invite them.
- 21:9 Pillar-boxing - Yeah, annoying as all get out. Cut-scenes I can understand, because the scenes aren't choreographed/rendered outside of the 16:9 field of view, but for binoculars, and almost everything else, don't do that.
- Sticky HUD Option - I'd like the HUD to have an option to not fade out when that particular element isn't in use, because I'd like to keep an eye on my magazine/reserve count without having to reload just to see it. Speaking of HUD...
- Some Kind of Indication of Magazine Counts - The game by default has no way to know how many rounds magazine hold, and the upgrades in the store don't tell us anything about how much it actually adds. This is just really, really, dumb, because I don't want to have to count bullet pictographs, or hold open the selection HUD to see how much is in the magazine. Even having a stat in the store that gives an integer of how much is in the gun vs. with the upgrade would be welcome.
- Extended Magazines/Suppressors Have ZERO Downsides - This is just weird to me, since suppressors are almost universally made to do some kind of debuff in every game, such as lower range or damage due to reduced velocity. The extended magazines also have no downside, not even a handling debuff to make them reload slower.
- Mid-Range Scopes are unjustifiably Worse than Long-Range - The mid-range scopes are statistically identical except that Long-Range have an extra range point. That's all, so there's no real reason to use them except for the lesser zoom or reticle style, which means most people who want a scope typically go for the long-range so they get that extra point of range.
- Bullet Penetration - There is none. Someone can be hiding behind a piece of rusty corrugated metal, and a .50 BMG round has no ability to perforate it. This has been a complaint with most people I've mentioned it to, so make like Siege did and add bullet penetration based on rounds, please.
- Crafting Pipe Bombs - Not sure why this wasn't in the game at the start. I can MacGyver a whole production-grade stick of dynamite with nothing but my mind, but a pipe bomb eludes me. Grenades I can understand a bit more because those are military-grade hardware, but a pipe bomb is by nature a home-made device.
- Brass Knuckles Can't Be Removed - Yeah, so if you want the achievements for beating a bull or bison to death, you have to kick it, because brass knuckles can't be removed, nor do they count for those achievements. Granted this can be worked around with the 'One-Punch Man' homeopathic, but it's still something that shouldn't be an issue.
- Add an Unbind Option - The key bind menu is nice, and works well, but I'd like an option to straight-unbind a key, instead of the age-old workaround of binding the key to something else and then overwriting it.
- Better Descriptions for Consumables - Are the pipe bombs, dynamite, and grenades any different? Is there anything better about them over each other? What in god's name does 'oregano' even do? What are the perks of getting wasted on alcohol? These things keep me up at night, man!
- Being Able to Unequip Weapons - Circling back to the brass knuckles thing, why is there no option to remove weapons so you can have an empty slot? Why am I forced to carry all these weapons if I didn't want to? The ability to unequip melee weapons, and the other weapons, would be very nice, so when I accidentally pick up a shovel I don't have to projectile throw them at people to get the slot empty again. Speaking of equipped weapons...
- Add Presets/Loadouts to Story - Loadouts are programmed into the game, as they're in Arcade, so why not add them to story mode? Being able to have a set of gear for one thing, and another for something else, for example. Having an outfit selector like Wildlands does for you to store your custom clothing setups would be great as well, so I don't have to keep going through the whole thing to change it.
- Companion Slot Swap - Right now, you can't swap the companions from slot 1 to 2, or vis-à-vis. Right now if you put one on Golf and the other on Hotel, you can't swap their slots without dismissing them, and then waiting one mike to get them back. Not being able to see who is on what slot because the HUD element is hidden also contributes to this being an issue.
- World Map Icon Filter - Another quality of life feature I'd like to see. Being able to filter the map for specific types of icons, such as a type of fish, hard fishing spots, fast travel points only, outposts only, etc. This would be very helpful so I don't have to load the browser map to find some specific fish.
- Unknown Points of Interest - There's still some points on the map I haven't found after 10 days of playtime, and it would be nice to be able to figure out if I'm missing things, because the map overview at the max-zoom level where it shows stats like 'Outposts cleared, missions completed, etc.' doesn't give any indication that anything is even missing to begin with. I'd add things like 'Fast Travel Points Unlocked, Hunting Spots Found, etc.' to it so it will entice people to look, or at the least let them know they're missing something.
- Fishing Records Don't Notify You - If you break a fishing record, it would be nice to get some kind of notice that you broke either the region record or your own. Have a pop-up on the fish weight that says something like, 'Record Weight: X' and something else below it if you broke it that would say like 'New Record!' so you know if you've beat the bounty board without having to go back and check.
- The God-Awful Co-Op Tethering - This just seems like a really, really, crappy console optimization. It's nearly impossible to provide air support for a partner in a plane when I only have about 300-400 meters of radial tethering to get lined up for gun runs.
- Over-Simplified Flight Controls - It would be nice to have Yaw and Roll split into different commands, because it makes fine-steering a complete pain in the sphincter. Being able to fly upside down would be nice as well instead of the game treating me like a child and automatically right-siding me if I do an inverted roll to try and look below me.
- Make Ammo & Health Sharing NOT Suck - You can give ammo to friends, but you can't choose what ammo to give them, nor can you share med kits.
- Difficulty Provides No Benefit - As of right now, the three difficulty modes provide no real benefit to using the harder modes. According to the menu, all it does it buff enemy damage. Adding a reduced health regeneration to medium, and removing it entirely from hard mode (using the modifiers included with Arcade), and giving some kind of benefit, such as extra cash or loot from missions/looting would go a long way towards making this even worth the common player's effort.
The game itself is a lot off fun, and most of my problems are purely nit-picky quality of life design choices. As one developer to another, if I was the guy making the decisions right now, I'd put the DLC on hold and work on doing an 'Operation: Health' style bug/quality of life update before I added even more work on top. If the foundation isn't there, the added weight of another room isn't going to hold well, if you get my meaning.
I'm enjoying the game, but these changes would go a long way for not just myself, but anyone else who wants to see them as well.
2018 May 6 Update:
I've played a bit more, and come up with something else.
- Add a Weapon Preferences Setting to the User Config - I have died more times than I care to count in Arcade because I'm trying to set my grenades to be sticky, set my fire modes, etc. Adding a block to the user config file would be a way to remedy this.
You could add the user's preferences for the weapons (such as fire modes, grenade launcher sticky toggle, etc.) to the gamerprofile.xml config in a new block, such as this:
Code:<WeaponProfile PreferredModeAK47="1" // Semi PreferredModeARCL="2" // Burst PreferredModeARC="3" // Auto PreferredAmmoAK47="0" // Normal PreferredAmmoARCL="1" // Armor Piercing PreferredAmmoSBS="2" // Slugs PreferredModeFrag="0" // Sticky Off PreferredModeDynamite="1" // Sticky On > </WeaponProfile>- Make Parachuting the Default When Air Drop Fast Traveling - I've gone to fast travel, and have Alt+Tab'd out, and my game will load in the background causing me to fall to my death over and over until I tab back in. Having it default to the parachute being open would solve this, as the parachute can be closed/the wingsuit can be opened instantly from the parachute, so there would be no delay.
- Add a "Items In the Level" Tab to the Arcade IGE - Forgive me if this is already implemented, but the documentation on the editor is not very in-depth. A menu to view the items that are in the level would be nice, as it would allow me to find specific entities or models quickly. I looked around a bit, but granted I only spent a few hours in the editor.
- "Select Similar" Menu Option Selects Everything - With an object selected, the "Select Similar Objects"(sic) function is consistently selecting the entire level's objects. If this is operator error, forgive me, but as I said before, the documentation is pretty shallow.
- Add a "HUD Scale" Float to the User Config/Options Menu 'Interface' Section - Combined with the HUD disappearing after what seems to be 2-5 seconds, When Your HUD is This Small to begin with, it's not easy to see, and it's really, really difficult to keep an eye on it because of the extremely small HUD size/screen size ratio.
- Add a "HUD Deadzone" X and Y Float to the User Config/Options Menu 'Interface' Section - Piggy-backing off the former, this would also help, because I could make the HUD elements stay closer to the center of the screen, making them easier to see. The radial companion/spotted status GUI elements are also hard to see when they float off into oblivion like that as well.
- Convert Excess Skill Points into Something Useful (Updated) - I have about 40 60+ extra skill points I can't spend or do anything with, since there's more than enough in the story challenges/stashes, and when combined with Arcade awarding them as well, you tend to have a metric crap-load. Being able to trade them for loot, cash, consumables, or just anything would be nice. My suggestion would be to have them convert into a cash sum after you have every skill, such as $500 per-excess point.
- Add a "1" and "2" Above Companion Marked Targets - This is an issue because a lot of times I'll mark something like Boomer to scout an area, and someone else to go after a heavy. The markers don't have an indication of who is going for them, so adding a numeric identifier to the icon would tell me who is aiming for who/what.
- Take Away Jess Black's Fire Arrows - I tend to bring her along when I want to hunt animals for the pelts, because having two people with bows shooting at something tends to work better. The problem is, her seemingly randomly picked fire arrows will burn the animal and ruin the pelts. The problem isn't so much in having the ability, it's the almost random number generation that decides it.
- Tab & CapsLock Key Binds - These would be nice to have added to the accepted keys list, because I usually put my weapon selection menu on Tab in games with one. Others have mentioned it as we
- Lack of In-Game Chat - Everyone I play co-op with doesn't own a microphone, so we have to use an external chat service to communicate, which is not always easy to do while in battle, for example. Having any way to talk in-game besides the VOIP they can't use would be nice. If a text chat was added, being able to disable it would be a nice thing to add as well, because the VOIP can be disabled already.
Partially Addressed Issues
Objects in this list have been changed slightly, but are not entirely non-issues.
- Gun Unbalancing - While I applaud the fact cosmetic guns perform the same as the normal versions, there is a serious lack of competition between most weapons. The MP5K is hands-down unequivocally better than the MP5, or the MP5SD because they all have the exact same stats, except for the MP5K having an extra handling stat. Give the MP5 a better accuracy and the MP5K a worse stat, or anything because it has a longer barrel for example, or make the suppressors actually have any kind of downside, so that the MP5SD might have a damage buff over the MP5 or MP5K since the suppressor is integrated.
Update: Slightly fixed in v1.5.0, but the MP5 is still like that.- Weapon Stats are Just Awful - As mentioned above, the stats for the weapons are so one-sided that using most of the guns is just more or less shooting yourself in the foot. Even the double-barrel lacks any reason to use it over the SPAS-12, and the SPAS is better in every stat than any of the pump-actions. Some statistical variety would be a godsend.
Update: 45/70, MS16, .44 Magnum, AK-MS have been tweaked, but some like the Shotguns and the MP5 types are still utterly unbalanced.
Resolved Issues
Objects in this list have been resolved.
- 21:9 + Resolution Scaling + Binoculars = Tagging is Completely Wrong - This Right Here. Using the resolution scaling in the options menu on a 21:9 monitor makes the tags float off into the ether. It's caused by the resolution scaling option, because if you set it to 1 It Looks Perfectly Fine
Update: Fixed in v.1.5.0- No Player Physical Customization After Prologue - You can't modify your appearance after the prologue.
Update: Fixed in v.1.5.0
A Flashlight/Torch - It does come on inside dark areas, caves and basements. An 'L' button would be nice.Originally Posted by ReverendV92 Go to original post
Animal Corpses are Stupidly Hard to Find - I do see an 'X' marking the corpse on the compass at the top of the screen.
Add a Toggle for Free-Look Mode in Helicopters - I play with joystick and trackball and seems to me the trackball free looks. You want to turn this off?
Mission Replay - I copy saves from time to time with notations, so I can replay from about any point in the game.
Convert Excess Skill Points into Something Useful - Or make the extra points increase the level or force or strength of certain perks.
HUD Toggle Hot Key - Good idea and has been asked before.
Radio Off by Default in Vehicles - I don't drive in the game much, but the radio in FC4 was a pain and had to be turned off as there was toggle.
Launch Parameter to Skip the Bloody Intros - There is a mod to eliminate the intros.
*link removed*
Sticky HUD Option - I like to see ammo and health in the HUD all the time.
Used to be a silencer would reduce damage by say 1 point.
Long-Range Scopes are unjustifiably Worse than Mid-Range - I don't know. My SA-50 scope has more magnification than the strongest one for the AR.
Bullet Penetration - I have shot through thin things using the SA-50 and armor piercing ammo.
Being Able to Unequip Weapons - I would like to drop weapons. And make it easier to move weapons to a different slot.
Add Presets/Loadouts to Story - Good idea. They have this for arcade custom maps.
World Map Icon Filter - Good idea.
*image removed*Originally Posted by hoonose2013 Go to original post
If you want to risk a ban, have at it. I'm not crossing that line.
A normal .50 BMG round alone would punch through the majority of normal building materials because it's more or less an anti-material round by design.Originally Posted by hoonose2013 Go to original post
Being able to toggle the torch at my own leasure would be much more welcome than requiring me to be in a trigger brush volume that limits it.Originally Posted by hoonose2013 Go to original post
I'm on a keyboard/mouse. By default the helicopter snaps the angle of the vehicle to where you look unless you hold right mouse. The snapping of the aim, while making it easier to shoot, is almost comically fast in turning the vehicle.Originally Posted by hoonose2013 Go to original post
The sniper category gets access to two scopes unique to that category, while the rest of the guns like the assault rifles and such get the usual styles.Originally Posted by hoonose2013 Go to original post
Mid-Range Scopes:
Long-Range Standard Scopes:
The long range scopes have no downside compared to mid-range, and only an upside. This ties into the horrible balancing of the weapons in general.
I was more referring to the standard most games set where suppressors have some kind of downside. I am aware that a suppressor alone does not eliminate the firing report, but most games seem to combine the use of sub-sonic rounds with the suppressor itself for simplicity.Originally Posted by Flanker1Six Go to original post
Sure. it's a game not real life. So many things are arbitrary or altered for gaming effect. One would think that a suppressor, being an advantage, would have a gaming downside, like decreased power or range. In FC5 compared to 4, a suppressed sniper shot is much more easily detected by the cultists.
Also why can't different vehicles go different speeds. It's ridiculous that I am driving a muscle car and a pickup can pass me, turn around, accelerate and then catch up to me and shoot me even though my speed hasn't changed because I'm on a straightaway.
And it feels like you go faster in the wingsuit than in the planes. They feel sooooo slow!
Just checking, but you're not using the auto-drive mechanic are you? I found that it doesn't drive at high speed because the AI is more or less guiding it to drive like a sane person.Originally Posted by TicTacGlue Go to original post
From what I found, the goons aren't noticing the report, but rather the bullet going through the target and hitting a wall or something on the other side and/or someone seeing the body drop.Originally Posted by hoonose2013 Go to original post