I think i figured out the thing that bothers me so much about this game that i couldn't fully articulate previously.
Like most people, i don't think the in game economy and resource management feel very rewarding nor does it respect the players time; there's an abundance of weapons and outfits all of which feel unimpressive due to the sheer number that's available not to mention they all have unique upgrade trees that require an abundance of resources. As annoying as it is, it's still sort of fine once you manage to finally nail down your playstyle and lean into it. Although for me personally
that took 41 hours. And all this is to say nothing of the fact that you now have to use machine parts to unlock some machine overrides after completing cauldrons. Like, why?
But the thing that really sets me off and crystallizes my point above is that the game doesn't adequately reward you for exploring early. Completely ignoring that at a point the game will literally present you with invisible walls to stop you progressing further, after nearly 50 hours and being max level, i have at least 4 or 5 pieces of legendary gear that i can't even begin upgrading to the first level because they require high value machine parts that in a lot instances i haven't even been exposed to.
It's like i busted my underleveled ass traversing this world and dealing with this soft level caps in order to complete these questlines and get the highest tier gear and, while they're really good in their base form, it's frustrating to feel like i essentially have even more homework to do if i want to enjoy to it's fullest extent. And that's before you consider that, unsurprisingly, different gear uses the same machine parts so you inevitable run into a situation where upgrading one thing will further delay you from upgrading something else.
I applaud the madmen and women who look to get the most out of this game without having easy loot turned on.
I'm not saying this needs to be some massive indict against the game where everyone should go review bomb it but there's an absolutely insane level of grind here that i don't see many people take umbrage with or even mention at all when other games with this level of grind would be slammed to high heaven.
The Gauntlet races are by far the worst part of this game, not gonna lie, I only did what was necessary for the trophy but christ it feels terrible. I can only hope I was missing something important because it was that bad.
You get some backstory type stuff once you complete them all that relates to the original game and you get a legendary weapon.
The weapon doesn't even fit into my playstyle so i don't even bother with it.
