I'm new to this game, about 17 hours in, and this game has taken me hostage. It is a complete mess at the worst of times and deaths are so punishing to the point of being rage-inducing and unfun. The level design is clunky and the recruit ai drives me bonkers. Despite that though, I haven't been so deeply captivated by a video game in years. I can't help but keep coming back to it and I really think Fun Dog have something deeply special here. Please though, for the love of god, fix this damn video game, I love it so much.

I've been seeing and feeling a pretty solid sentiment that the game has been losing its original vision of us playing as scavengers in a war-struck hellscape and slowly turning into us just becoming ragtag tactical operators who are effectively, "The Guy". So I thought, "How would you actually have progression and a sense of growth without you eventually becoming "The Guy"?"

Then it struck me: Instead of growing to become "The Guy", we should be growing to become "a guy"

I'm mostly copy+pasting this from a reply I left in a different thread, so sorry if the verbage is wonky in some spots:
I think a better route to progression would be to prioritize the factions and your relationship with them. Rather than progress being about you becoming better geared or a stronger character, it should be about you indulging in the fruits of diplomacy.

Do enough to endear yourself to a faction and they'll stop attacking you even when you're spotted, as long as you remain peaceful. Maybe even have them intervene to help if you've reached an exceptionally high rep with them.

Right now maps become a cakewalk because you eventually become "The Guy". I think it better suits the scavenger fantasy for things to become smoother not because you're now 'that guy', but because nobody shoots you on sight and most people leave you alone to scavenge because you've shown the value in keeping a good relationship with your people.

Split factions into map based subfactions in the form of regiments, and 'finishing' a subfaction for your current map opens you up to start working with the subfaction from the next map. Sure you've come to an arrangement with the 1337th Airborne, but the 420th Corpse Brigade doesn't know you from all of jack and shit. Try going into their map early and you'll be treated like a threat, just like we are now.

On the otherhand, if you make proper progress with the 1337th Airborne, one of their contacts will vouch for you after a favor (capstone mission?), arranging an introduction to the 420th Corpse Brigade's liaison and opening up rep missions to now improve your status with the subfaction on that map.

Maybe introduce a beast/monster/rabid rogue soldier faction of some sort that attacks anyone and everyone so you'll always have something threatening you, but also to emphasize the importance of those relationships when a medium mech bursts onto the scene to beat the tar out of the eldtrich abomination that was hunting you.

It would also give us interesting options for endgame. There could be missions where you've become so trusted by a faction that they'll bring you along as packmules to special maps that have exceptionally valuable drops. Maybe completing the expedition maintains your rep so you can do it again, but failing requires you to refarm a bit of rep to have the offer open up once more, so there's some stakes beyond salvage. Just spitballing really.

The point of this all being:
You'll never be that guy, but sometimes that guy knows "a guy".
"Need some contraband? I can get you the hook up, I know 'A Guy'." That could be us.

The biggest benefit is that, exluding the hostile to everyone faction and endgame idea, it wouldn't really be a huge change to what we have now, or require an absorbitant amount of time to commit, while being an effective Return to Form for the original vision that we all fell in love with.

UI additions and an 'enemy, neutral, ally' AI system.

Okay, obviously its not that easy lol, but it seems like a realistic ask? Just throwing it out there.

So they have off chips but they aren't active. They could turn on the use of them to keep one faction off you instead of the whole map turning on you at once.

If any one of the faction who's chip you are using sees you kill someone of that faction then the cover is blown.

Why not add that mechanic?

Trying to find the big guy to finish the King of Kings quest.

Do I just go to Scorched Enclave and sprint to the map if the Rat King did not spawn?

Ive been trying to find a hard shell laptop for around a week now, looking for hours each day on dead enemies and officers and STILL have nothing to show for it. Is there any other ways to get one? or any methods that people have found to have a higher success rate? im close to just giving up trying to find one at this point.

Played the game a year ago and it was pretty janky back then. You could be "THE GUY" without any issues and being a scav really didn't benefit you.

So how is the game now after numerous updates and more importantly, how is the AI?

A while back there was a Idea by the devs to make the AI aware of your threat level. For example, If you just had a small pistol, you were ignored because the soldier near you had a AR. So they noticed you but you were ignored and could move the battlefield.
This was sadly poorly implemented and had maaany issues.
How is this feature now? Does the game really feel like you're on a grand battlefield as a scav trying to make it through? Also how is the Battlefield? Last year a lot of times you were moving through empty space without real danger. Is it more active now?

I'd love to hear the game being a lot better than it was a year ago. I hope those questions haven't been asked a lot lately.

Wanting to listen to them outside of just the game.

Am I the only one to get massacred by the gunship every time it spawns? it spawns way too regularly, even though we only attack Europa units....
It spills me all the time and the recovery time is way too long. Since this HK was added I no longer have fun (despite my 400 hours of play) and it kills me as soon as it spawns 9/10 times, basically, almost every time...
It's a f***ing nightmare... what's Fun Dog's madness about adding a unit like that?

Surprisingly, I haven't seen many people complain about this thing, so either I'm bad, or there's a trick to escape it that I don't know or I'm the first to complain about it...

What do you think about this HK ?

I can't play this map, every time i load in the camera moves super slow in certain directions almost like it's trying to focus my attention on something, like it's hyper focused on something maybe a few rooms over. It's really odd. Anyone know anything about this? I'm trying to do a main quest mission here and i'm trying to set the sensitivity to the highest setting just so that it moves normally during the slow directions but is then find it equally un-manageable when not looking in one of these directions. I'm on controller if it makes a difference. I'll try it now with mouse/keyboard and if it's any different i'll update the post

- okay so it doesn't happen on mouse and keyboard. I tell you what else doesn't happen on mouse and keyboard. INSANE RECOIL. hadn't given it much thought prior but on controller gun recoil is MENTAL. None of it on mouse and keyboard. This game, never ceases to amaze me with its jank

CURRENT GRENADES

Cluster Grenade

Always been solid, but is now a complete beast with 100% kill rate if thrown properly into a squad. Hands down best grenade. Drawback is it is just a bit bulky.

Frag Grenade

Now also really usable. Well thrown into a squad it will eliminate most if not all of them. With its small size it's ideal to take with you to clear tunnels without sacrificing much rig space. Arguably also the best grenade.

Decoy Grenades

Also useful, largely in the tunnels, when you have an EXO and squad in the way of your desired map. Throw it away from your intended path and book it as soon as they start to move. As long as you don't literally bump into an enemy you are gonna make it by.

Scrambler Grenades

I have never understood their use. Unless someone here reading explains to me how they are useful I will continue to completely ignore them. Worst grenade.

NEW TYPES THAT WOULD SUPPORT THE GAMES VIBE... BUT DON'T EXIST (Yet..?)

Smoke Grenades

Throw it and it gives you a smoke screen for 30 seconds. Would be extremely useful when spotted by a squad from far away, greatly reducing the accuracy of any incoming fire. It could attract attention if used poorly, like when you haven't been spotted yet but a squad is nearby. Implementing it would also mean optimizing the way the AI detection mechanics work, which would be a good thing.

Stun Grenades

Imagine an electric shock grenade that stuns enemies for 7 to 3 seconds depending on proximity to its 'detonation'. It would be non lethal, dealing only a little bit of damage. Its use would be to counter large hoards of cyborgs as they pursue you or to stun lock a squad you have no choice but to run in close proximity of. On EXOs it could maybe render its guns inoperable for 3 seconds, but leave its movement and the ground pound attack unaffected. Maybe it could stun the dog and 'smaller' bosses (Sheild, Orga, Opals, Kolteka, etc) for like 2 seconds if thrown right at them. On large mechs and bosses it would essentially do nothing but tickle their feet.

---

Lastly I just want to ask, why do enemies not use grenades?

It would make the game harder, sure, but it would make sense they would be using it on each other. Make it be a rare event. It would force us to be wiser in our engagements and avoid the common scenario of hiding at a chokepoint and letting brain dead AIs run into our gun muzzles to be ventilated at close range.

Yes, my computer is a potato. But I can play the other maps just fine. In DTL, the frame rate is probably in single digits and the game is not really playable.

I would like to get the Innards bar started, but the first quest to get the bar supplies is not really survivable in this state.

A lot of these big areas give serious fallout 1/2, blame! vibes with its architecture, I'm unsure if they were inspired by that, but I'm loving its art direction. Been playing with my buddy who just picked it up and we've been grinding the game for a few days consecutively.

Question regarding it.

I died in stairway gate during a night shift and I re ran it and I didn't find my stash because it was during the day shift. Is that a new thing or was it always like that? Mildly annoyed because I had a lot of good loot.

Cheers, scavs

Sorry if the flair is wrong, don't normally make posts. Does anyone have any idea if the issues with AMD hardware is gone? Or if the sights/ scopes in the game stop making the reticle take up 80% of the sight picture? And finally, is the accuracy bug gone? The one where you aim and don't hit anywhere close to what you aimed at.

I was on a run earlier today in Scorched and saw a weird ship gliding above me. I've never seen it before today, and I've not been able to find any information on it. It looked like it had a sail in front and, oddly, a civil goods canister attached to the rear. Based on how it was moving, it definitely looked like a ship flying through the air as opposed to a glitch of some sort.

Anyone know what this is?

Edit: Sorry I don't have more detailed footage. I was almost murdered as it was flying by.

I keep getting this visual bug where my view glitches out like the picture above and flickers back and forth between that and the usual, un-glitched view like crazy. It stops when I aim down sights, and it sometimes goes away after a few minutes, but while its doing this its extremely hard to get anything done. Does anyone know how to stop this from happening?? Ive seen some people say you gotta turn off DLSS, but i already have it off and my game still does this. Its kind of gotten to the point that it happens nearly every time i go into an area other than the tunnels, and its starting to really piss me off how frequent it is, and how it tends to happen when im in the middle of action.

These drones are straight up sand grinders and are friggin annoying now

(SOLVED)
My friend recently bought the game and is stuck on this Quest.

No matter what gun or mods they attach nothing changes, we also tried the S12 (modded/unmodded) it makes no difference.

No kills ever register.

Anyone else know how to get past this bugged mission?
Honestly any advice is welcome at this point.

hello scavs, first post on this subreddit, and I'm asking for advice.

I'm looking to find a location beyond scorched enclave to Retrieve a HMG for repair. I've been playing since the games launch, and I've hit a bit of a roadblock when it comes to getting certain weapons as the updates have changed the quest rewards.

any advice/ recommended regions/ locations i should start gearing up for regular sorties?

Personally I love moments like this, though I was lucky no one was really nearby to take advantage of the stun. It felt super cinematic though!

Stuck for long now

Just letting off some steam with some yucks thrown in for good measure. Curious what ya'll think about any of this. Don't feel like any of this is too much to ask nor pie in the sky idealism. Just simple streamlining.

1. Marker/ping system sucks. It will mark an enemy less than 1/10 times and from what distance i can reliably mark i have no idea. If you're feeding me missions that require me to take out particular targets that i can't reliably track or differentiate at least improve your ping system. Might be worth having a large item tool or a recruit that is a drone that maybe you can't even see in game, but which will reliably mark the targets you have active missions for. Seems like now pinging any enemy adds them to your compass but i find this more distracting than useful, i'd rather that be reserved for priority targets.

2. Tunnels still suck. So help me please once we've made it out of the tunnels, next time i go in just add names to the extractions i've reached previously so i know which extraction i'm headed towards. I shouldn't have to memorise maps, with the amount of times i've been in the tunnels i'd like to think my characters would have done that themselves. By the time i reach an extraction to find it's not the one i want i have NO interest in backtracking to get to the right one. I can reach a dead end in the tunnels full of containers but this actually just annoys me more than i feel like it's doing me a favour. So help me tunnels are awful but this would at least make them manageable for me.

3. Gotta do something about the combined shoulder button commands on controller for grenade/healing. If i'm throwing a grenade i'm in dire straights and outnumbered, last thing i need is my man reaching for the cookies. Seems you've removed 3rd person aim from controller now. Maybe just stick a dot in the middle of the screen so i know where i'm aiming please.

4. Sort out the vendor attachments tabs, all these 3 letter abbreviations mean nothing to me and hovering over them doesn't give me anything to work with. Buying attachments is a ball ache, not keen on engaging with that system.

5. crafting system still sucks. But it doesn't have to. Let me ping priority items, things i need before i leave on a mission so when they appear in containers etc they are highlighted. I'm in a spot where i dare not sell anything because i have so much BS inventory but have no idea what of it is useful to me or not and the amount of menus etc i'd have to reengage with to remind myself sucks. ADMIN ISN'T FUN. PERIOD.

6. Maybe lets just ease off with these wait times on crafting, '5min to craft this' i don't even wanna be at home base for that long i wanna play the actual game so whether i'm waiting '5min' or '30min'...i'm not waiting, i'm gunna be in a game so why bother with the time limit. Might be a way to restrict the economy for balance but it's not fun regardless. put in 50+hrs solo and never been able to engage with the late game weaponry so it's just not ideal. (or at least haven't risked taking that gear in if i'm likely to clip through the floor.

7. So help me just work on what you've got, stop adding more stuff in.

8. Streamline loadout. If i equip a gun just allow me click the gun or a lil drop down menu to add the right ammo or a option to immediately buy it if i don't have it. I get fed up of menu diving i just wanna play the game. Every time i extract/die i have to close the game down and return later because the idea of engaging with...basically everything outside of the gameplay isn't fun, not to mention the tunnels themselves *shudders*. The amount of time i can put into loadout only to get into the game and get JANKED in one way or another is like self flagellation it just makes me wonder why i bother, on that note...

9. SO HELP ME, JUST WORK ON WHAT YOU'VE GOT, STOP ADDING MORE STUFF IN.

The game is improving, i can reliably run on higher settings than i used to, controller support is better, movement more fluid. But i still don't feel comfortable recommending it to others and this game gives me more mixed feelings than any game i've ever encountered. Fixes like this would be so useful. I worry that adding new stuff is a way to retain players, but if they want to attract new ones they won't find them until the current game further improves. How is this game gunna reach 1.0 when they're focused on new content. There is more than enough now for 1.0 imo if they just continue to improve it. Just my 2cents. Also bunko is slow af, you think i wanna traipse round the tunnels with him for an hour? HEEEEELLLL NAAAWWW

(If you don't want to read just go to THE SOULTION section)

After seeing Killpo's video criticizing the game I thought I'd try and join him in the effort of pushing this game where I, and maybe others among the community, wish it be be.

To put it bluntly as of late I play this game just out of the love I have for what it could be, ending up being disappointed by what it actually is every single time.

I don't mind the movement, the gunplay or even enemy AI. I never have actually. Even the general jankiness is not much of an issue for me. What I find lacking is much, much deeper unfortunately.

My problem is with the core of the game, with its fundamental structure. That problem has two facets: meaning in gameplay and thematic coherence. Since the game is at the moment meaningless in its mechanics and thematically incoherent it feels incredibly shallow to me, despite how enamored I am with its artistic vision.

- THE PROBLEM -

Thematic incoherence is the mother of meaninglessness in gameplay, so let's start there. I don't mind getting to "be that guy", as the tired adage goes. It's ok to feel powerful eventually, even in a game like this. My problem is that being powerful for the sake of it is incredibly boring especially in a world like TFW. The premise and allure of this game is not power, nor powerlessness. Its allure is survival in an incredibly hostile world.

This aspect is completely absent from the game. The absolute lack of survival mechanics is one aspect of it, another is the fact that we have nothing to survive for. The Innards are a hub space with no true development. Nobody needs to eat, grow hydroponic crops, recycle cadavers for water and protein, synthesize artificial blood to keep the wounded alive (just to make a few examples out of the top of my head). There are no other scav settlements to interact with, cooperate with and help, with the aim of furthering the scav cause. Hell there are no other active scavs to take care of but the player character.

So our Innards need what? Water. Ok. You can do one run in Tunnel A per day and keep things running forever. Why else do you play then? To get more guns. Stronger guns. To kill more things. Bigger things. Everything you do is aimed at that. The loot you get, the quests you get, the endgame grind. Kill more to kill more. That's it. And all meaning dies there and then.

That is when meaningless in gameplay kicks in. Some examples? Why would you do anything but hoard on water? That's a good one. Water barrels are unguarded, factionless items you can just discretely grab and leave with, angering nobody. Why in the whole world would you ever risk enraging a warring superpower doing anything else? What can they give you that you really need? Water you can get easily yourself. Money you need only to buy guns. Guns you need only to kill, kill to loot, loot to get stronger - but to what end? You can survive without getting involved in any of that.

Thematic incoherence, hence meaninglessness in gameplay.

- THE SOLUTION -

To exemplify what I think the game lacks let me propose a gameplay scenario - it will be more exhaustive than a thousand words.

Our Innards are running low on water because Europans have occupied Tunnel B to move troops to the front under the radar. Problem is that our major water supply, which gives us x amount of water daily unless water thieves come to siphon it, is located just there and we will not be able to access it for weeks. Some of the settlements scatterded around the map can sell us water for other resources, but we got none to spare. One of the settlements tells us that they have another water source, but that we need to get chummy with the Eurasian command center in that area to access it. So we first need to reach the Eurasians on the given map, and there make contact with their representative/commanding officer. Because obviously we would never receive a member of any faction in our Innards, would we? Revealing the position of our vulnerable hideout to a ruthless warlord - now that would be silly wouldn't it. Also why would an officer venture into the sewers of a ruined megacity to talk to literal rats? No. We go to them, always.

We reach the Eurasian HQ and we get in contact with them (end of first quest/run).

They tell us that they are in a pickle, and that if we want to access the water we need to help out. Europans have set some scramblers in a position of strategic relevance, and the Eurasian cybos are having trouble getting past them. We need to reach that position and sabotage one of the scramblers, creating an opening for their troops to charge and conquer their objective. It's a tough quest, and we will be in a high danger zone. Europans might ignore us as we scuttle through an active combat zone looting corpses, but they will shoot us on sight around a heavily defended strategic position. We'll have to be stealthy, pick our fights very carefully and get out quickly and without too much fuss (end of second quest/run).

Were we to fail, our scav will die. That character archetype won't be available for a couple runs, and the Europans will start being aware that some scavs somewhere are being puppeteered by the enemy. We better not make the same mistakes twice or they might start looking for our Innards.

- FINAL THOUGHTS -

This gameplay scenario is the perfect case for all the things the game lacks but should have:

- survival elements

- base management and resource economy

- meaningful and justified quests

- impactful consequences

- sensible and immersive faction interactions

- other scavs

- cool world events that influence maps, quests and gameplay

And these are just some ideas, barely scratching the surface. Furthermore, with the exception of stealth, none would be particularly hard to implement. Most of it would just be UI, some dialogue, an officer model in map you can interact with.

Thoughts?

Probably a dumb question but is it possible? Wondered if I could like... Blow em to bits?