I really enjoyed v0.8, but personally v0.9 has ruined a lot of what I enjoyed so much about this game. There's a ton of things I think really need some big reworks, or at the bare minimum, ways to disable them completely.
Coordinate towers seem kind of extra, and just makes searching for signals more arduous and time-consuming. It takes so long to position them that most of the time, my signal disappears before they're positioned, which is super frustrating. And having to fix the towers (and buy fuses) just adds more busywork to the game. My favorite part of this game is just goofing around and exploring, so every update that just gives me more chores to do takes away the best part for me. Triangulation would be fine if coordinate towers don't need repairing, and moving the markers was significantly faster.The tutorial is riddled with issues, and it takes forever to work through. Why make the player sit and wait through the signal processing and downloading? Just speed it up so it only takes a few seconds. I cant even walk around since the game yells at you when you leave the area. The tutorial is not the place for waiting around.
And on the topic of the tutorial, the new controls just seem like more of a hassle than anything. Every action takes longer now. I honestly think held and grab modes should just be merged into one, since both just seems like a lot of extra mechanics and keybinds people need to understand and differentiate. Simplicity is king.
Why is there a weird darkness filter in the basement? My flashlight ran out down there, and essentially softlocked my game since it was pitch black. It should have at least a tiny bit of ambient lighting, or some sort of glow around the player.
My game is running very poorly compared to last build, even with settings all brought down to minimum. I'm not running on particularly slow hardware (rtx 3080ti, ryzen 3900xt) so it was a little frustrating.
And more on the topic of busywork, everything is more expensive and harder now. The ATV requires a bunch of replacement parts all the time, so that's just more time spent fixing things, more money needed, and less fun goofing around. Stuff like physical server upgrades are fine, but its a strange thing to focus time on when it doesn't really change much for gameplay, and takes more time to upgrade things.
It was a really disappointing experience playing through, since I really love a lot of what VOTV has to offer. Discovering new things and events, a cool map to drive around and explore, easter eggs and secrets, tons of items to buy and mess with. I want more of that stuff, not just more mechanics thrown in just "because". I really like the art direction with the new update, and a lot of models and textures have seen some really nice improvements. I can only hope that these things are all still subject to change, because I want to enjoy this game, and in its current state, I am not.