There are a lot of QOL changes that would be game changing

There are a lot of QOL changes that would be gamechanging

This game has me hooked. The gameplay, worldbuilding and atmosphere speak to me. When it clicks, nothing feels like it. The world feels dangerous and terrifying. Firepower doesn't matter without speed and precision. The UESC and our fellow runners may regularly have us beat on both, but maybe, with the right combo of wit and luck, we can scrape by with a successful exfil.

But then it falls apart. A UI bug means my girlfriend and I queue into Cryo Archive as a duo, no fill, and get rolled. Try again. Our third wont talk, we get stomped again. Its fine, I step back and start running Free Sponsored kits. And a level 500 player obliterates me with a railgun from a POI away as I'm about to complete a contract. Then it happens three more times.

Not one thing, but a lot of tiny grievances that add up. A lot of the discourse around this game is that its "a game for no one," a weak entry in a genre no one wants more of. I don't think thats quite true. I think it has some incredibly unique elements that are unlike anything else I've seen, and it does its best to make you never want to see them. I'm sure many of them have been listed but here are my major points of friction.

1. meta structure and menu UX
   \- Gearing up for a mission is tough. If i want true flexibility in attachments, I need to strip all my weapons down for parts when I get them, and assemble pre-mission. I should be able to see all eligible attachments at a glance, and be asked "remove sight from Weapon A and attach to Weapon B?"
   \- Ditto for the shop and vault. Several chips do drastically different things with the same icon, slowing me down. And despite not conveying much information, all the UI takes up so much \*\*space\*\*
   \- Contract descriptions vary wildly in usefulness. Two descriptions of "hack object in POI and exfil item" will be near identical while one summons powerful enemies and one is a milk run you can complete silently with ease
   \- The map rotation is rough, especially for duos. Only one duos map per day makes it hard, especially when contracts take us elsewhere. I would much prefer to have one map for all 3 squad sized queues, which rotates every 90 minutes or so. And then Cryo can stay trios because... its its own thing

2. General UX
   \- The ping's animation is slow and its functionality is unreliable. Sometimes it has flagged "thereislightstill pinged a door," other times it wont.
   \- The map view is both cluttered and lacks detail. We need either a minimap or, if committing to opening a real map, it needs to be more intuitive to use. Pings on buildings will get eaten up as generic POI pings, and I regularly ping Profit Opportunities only for it to not register on my teammates
   \- Small interactions like opening/closing doors and mantling feel ever so slightly clunky. Under pressure, they become frustrating. The "hold to confirm" time is so long

3. Loot economy
   \- Worthwhile loot feels scarce outside of Cryo. If we're supposed to progress through the maps in sequence, it is real hard to make each leap from Perimeter-Marsh-NightMarsh-Outpost-Cryo.
   \- The more involved looting paths are arcane - security cards are sporadic and unreliable. Firestorm Lockers require digging through in game mail to understand how they work. Once you know it, it gets better, but clearing that up would be a godsend
   \- Running into high level players on Perimeter feels so bad man. Gold shields gunning my ass down when I don't have anything but a free kit stings. This is accentuated by the aforementioned lack of clarity in loot patterns.
   \- I'd honestly love a free Sponsored kit only mode, maybe thats just what Perimeter should be tbh. Or just throttle maps by gear access, or certain maps at certain times
   \- This combines with the long sightlines on maps to make rotations feel terrifying at all times. I have gone into a POI done my contract silently, and been one shot by a purple or gold sniper from a POI and a half so so so many times in solos.
   \- This means its hard to get comfortable with most guns that are simply too rare to try out

I don't say all this to nitpick. But more to point to the broader issue, which is that this game has a lot of prickly areas. Much of that is by design - in a real way this is a game and genre about disempowerment and feeling small. But a lot of it is just "why tf does it work like that???" That honestly, culminates in sessions where I want to walk away.

But then, we got a perfect match on Night Marsh to end our time this season. Loaded up our best gear, won our fights, got all our contract tasks done and some good loot. And I know we're going to be back in a few weeks.

I dunno. Let me know if you have any thoughtts on this big braindump.