Thanks for the opportunity to share and for the changes you have made so far. This will be long.

This is a more gorunded and light survival suggestion on the gear management in the game. A lot of the gear in the game is locked behind classes or is always available from the weapon wheel. The rest of the inventory is available at anytime from a menu. In my opinion, this takes away from immersion and the opportunity for grounding. There is a lot of time spent by players in the customization menus creating loadouts and matching them with the different environments and playstyles. This ends up being pointless since i can spend 10 minutes creating a realistic loadout but my frined can join me wearing shorts, a cape and a cowboy hat, weilding a 50cal and stoner lmg and can pull out a rocket launcher anytime from a menu. This leaves a sense of pointlessness after putting time in trying to make sure i have the right cammo and loudout when it all doesn't matter.

Here's my idea to help this. Gear in the shop, general inventory, bivouac and on my player should be available with varying levels of access. The same way you can choose whether you can access the shop only at the bivouac, it should extend to gear and loadouts. I should not have direct access to gear that i have not equipped on me. The player should have gear on the vest, gunbelt, back pack and a portable stash with the chosen vehicle. The gear on the vest and belt should allow quick access through the item wheel as it is now. What i would also like is for visual representation of this gear and actual animations to interact with them. If i reload, have my character actually pull out a mag, if i equip a rocket launcher have it visually represented as the second primary weapon, not like it is now where it just appears from thin air just because it is equipped from an item wheel. On that note, if i don't have gear equipped on the item wheel, then i should not be able to use it. Things like the drone, NVGs and the parachute (which should be a depletable resource). These things should not be easily accessible if i have not equipped them on the item wheel.The gunbelt and vests should be customizable and all the items i place on the item wheel should be visually represented on my person by pouches and stuff like that. Crafting and all the heavy gear such as class items should be accessible through an in game animation that has you interact with the backpack instead of having us go into the menu all the time. There should also be a simpler in game version of the map without needing to go to the menu. There is just a lot of start stop with going into the menu everytime you want to tweak and change things. Most things and functions should be accessible in game through animations but ONLY for eqquipped items. Next is the portable stash. The extra loadouts we create should be stored on a vehicle of choice from the bivouac and only be accessible in the world from that vehicle and not from a menu while playing the game. Sort of like how red dead 2 handlesstored outfits on the horse saddle. The vehicle should act as a portable mini stash and the biviouac should be the general stash for your personal inventory. This will make the vehicles really matter and will make us more grounded in the game. You could also add a repair tool for the vehicle for maintainance. Of course different vehicles should offer different number of loadouts. This will also make it cool for co-op.

For the stamina, i think the whole bar should gradually deplete offering less and less stamina gauge as the player moves around in the world. This should be restored by drinking water maybe every 24 in game hours otherwise your stamina bar should begin to drop more drastically and it should affect the risk of injury by increasing it. Right now, that bar almost never depletes because it only does so when you keep running past the stamina gauge limit or when you tumble. These are good mechanics but it should also gradually deplete as you just play in the game and should be replenished by drinking water. The same should be for the health bar with the rations. The health bar should gradually deplete and the risk of injury should increase as time goes on and this should be reset and/or boosted by the rations. Right now the rations and water just act as a stat boost but are almost never used other than just for an immersion feel, give more weight to them. For armor, different vests should offer different levels of protection. This could play of the difficulty, if i have very light gear i should take as much damage as i do in harder difficulties but should be stealthier. If i have very heavy gear on then i should take as much damage as i do in normal difficultybut the stealth should very difficult as well as stamina consumption as mentioned above. Lastly is the outfits, these should also be neccesary depending on the weather. I should need to put on warmer clothes in the snow and when its raining and cooler clothes when it's daytime. All of these things should play off eachother and will really make us feel grounded and add meaningful and practical immersion in the game. It will make preparation rewarding and fulfilling.

We want to feel like grounded elite soldiers, not super soldiers who can just carry everything and traverse the whole world without any thought apart from where enemies are. We want to exist IN the world, now it feels like we exist ON it.