Genuinely I was excited when I first got in. I was in love with the 0.8 build I had started playing under, even if I am a very casual player and didn't really understand all the mechanics. The bigger base was awesome and initially I got excited by the new models for the ATV and consoles.
Initially.
I am thoroughly begging that some of the new mechanics are rebalanced for new players. The difficulty which used to scale now feels like a sudden assault. 3 level 0 scans is not a problem later on, but when you first start the game is like a jumpstart which very nearly took me down right out the gate. Again, I hadn't kept up with the game, nor do I watch streams.
Genuinely that was way less egregious than when I suddenly couldn't use the coordinates panel. This blindsided me because it's not written about anywhere in the tips and hints, and I didn't want to be spoiled on other contents of the game. Luckily I found a reddit post which explained the game mechanic without going too in depth about anything else, except now I was already out of the game, alt tabbing for dear life. 50 tokens per fuse is incredibly anti-new player. I'm struggling to get potatos cooked. I'm no expert, I'm not someone who watches streamers play. I've turned off fuse decay because after then dumping 500 tokens instead of getting a kerfur, all the fuses broken in 3 days anyways. Then, along the way my ATV fully stopped, which confused me because I still had fuel. Imagine my surprise when I found out the battery discharges while you're riding even if you're not using the lights.
Look, I like the granularity of the game. Things like that are exactly why I found the game endearing in the first place. I know some part of this is going to be people saying; 'get good' or 'should have read up before playing' but genuinely I wanted to go in blind and try to experience the game instead of scrolling the wiki and reddit for every detail. So, yes, some explanation on what is happening would have gone a long way. An updated map with the coordinate towers, an explanation that they will decay and preferably some way to check the status using the same computer as the transformers. Genuinely the fuses should be an optional setting, let me go repair it the same way as the transformers with a different puzzle.
I know you're probably trying to balance it in a way that is still exciting for twitch streamers and people who've probably played the game for thousands of hours but I walk away feeling steam rolled by the new mechanics. It'd be nice if there were options for both.