-Fix the AI. This is probably the most glaring issue with the gameplay of Wildlands at the moment. Ubisoft Paris, go take a look at MGS V's enemy AI and how it handles stealth detection. That is how it should be, or at least a lot closer to it. None of this bogus and ridiculous "Enemy detects dead body, now leads entire base contingent directly for my hidden position 600 meters away." And of course, the other instances when the game just spawns squads of enemies out of thin air right next to you. When tuned for a campaign set on Normal, this isn't such a big deal, since the game plays like Gears of War at that setting, but on higher difficulties where players want to have realistic levels of bullet damage, these instances feels very unfair and unfun. The amount of enemies in encounters, in general, feels very high, but the actual AI behind them feels shoddy and lackluster. Lower the enemy numbers, but give them realistic tactics and behaviors, along the lines of MGS V, and it'll be a much more satisfying gameplay experience.
-And of course, a big issue with all of these tactical shooters in wilderness environments... the AI's ability to see through foliage better than the player can. This was a noticeable issue with the original Ghost Recon game, in fact. Wildlands continues that tradition. It's just not a good feeling when the AI somehow sees through dense jungle foliage to spot you while you're hiding in the foliage looking to ambush him. Stuff like the orange tags and abusing thermal vision can sorta kinda help to even the field a bit, but it all feels like bandaids on the central issue of the AI being way too good at spotting you.
-Semi auto sniper rifles should have more ammo than the heavy bolt action sniper rifles. A battle rifle (or DMR) like the G28 or MK14 should not have the same ammo load as a .50 cal BMG anti-materiel rifle. Right now, these battle rifles like the G28 feel incredibly weak and can take something like 5-6 rounds to kill an alerted enemy. In a firefight, where you're engaged and missing shots as well, the ammo capacity of 20+68 rounds is just not enough. For something like a .50 cal HTI, sure that'll be enough. But the battle rifles need an ammo capacity that is somewhere between the heavy sniper rifles and the assault rifles.
-Reduce the stealth bonus for shooting enemies that are unalerted. This is one of the most unrealistic aspects of Wildlands. Sneak up on an unsuspecting guard and shoot him in the foot with a 9mm and he'll be knocked backwards dead like he just got hit by a rocket. On the other hand, once enemies are alerted, they can take something like 5 or 6 7.62mm shots from a MK14. This huge damage disparity between alert states feels incredibly silly and unrealistic. I feel like a damage bonus of 25-50% would be fine and still reward players for their stealth gameplay, instead of what feels like 400-500% in the current game.
-Too often, enemy bases and outposts are located right by the side of the road. As the player is trying to survey the base and snipe from the outer edges of the location, they're basically forced to position right near the roads. This means that often the whole thing will be ruined by a random cartel or Unidad patrol driving down the road, detecting you, and shooting you in the back. Unbelievably frustrating. I suggest moving bases further away from roads to help solve this issue.
-Real ballistics models for individual guns. I think everybody knows by now that every single sniper rifle, with the exception of the Dragunov, has the exact same ballistic trajectory (bullet drop). There's no difference in bullet drop between a .50 cal HTI and a 7.62mm G28. It just feels lame. The ballistics data is out there. The real guns are out there. Please just get the modeling into the game so the guns can feel unique and realistic.
-Tagging enemies. Tags are a gameplay mechanic that are appropriate for this kind of game and should remain. They reward recon scouting and preparation and this should be encouraged. However, I feel like right now they're just too powerful. Perhaps when you lose LOS, tags should freeze in place, much like how "Last Known Position" works for the player in Splinter Cell games. This would fix the issue of me diving behind cover but somehow still being able to see the orange circles running around through the terrain, like I have X-ray vision. Of course, this may have some issues that need to be worked out and adjusted, like any new mechanic.
-Gun stats should make sense and actually convey the real under-the-hood information. For example, on the loadout screen, you can compare the rate of fire stat for the HTI and the MSR and conclude that the MSR must fire way faster than the HTI. That's what I noticed when I first played through the game in 2017. I mean, the MSR's bar is so much longer. But ingame, there's basically no difference in their ROFs. And of course, the same goes for noise reduction. Different guns have different stats for it, but ingame there's no difference at all. Every SMG with a suppressor will be silent to enemy AI at 23 meters, and cause suspicion at 22 meters. Every sniper rifle with a suppressor will be silent to enemy AI at 48 meters, and cause suspicion at 47 meters. Why give us different stats on the loadout menu when it's all completely meaningless?
-Fix the over the shoulder view for shooting. Right now, I pretty much always use ADS for shooting. The over the shoulder view is disastrous in this game and completely inadequate for actual gameplay use. The problem is that the bullet doesn't go where the reticle is. It can be blocked by walls, and this makes the reticle turn into a red X. From a gameplay standpoint, it's awful because you'll often be turning a corner to shoot the enemy and trying to figure out exactly when the red X will clear and turn into a red dot. That kind of uncertainty in a tactical Tom Clancy game is just unbelievably frustrating and converted me to only using ADS. Other shooters prioritize gameplay and allow you to shoot the target when you place the reticle over it. This needs to be changed for Wildlands 2, or else the over the shoulder perspective for shooting should be removed entirely.
-Gun sights and scopes should convey the correct zoom. If you test it out, you can see that the Digital Scope, which advertises a 2.5-3.5x adjustable zoom, actually does no such thing. Its 2.5x zoom actually provides slightly less zoom than "normal" 1x sights like the Panoramic Sight and EXPS3. It really functions as more of a 0.9x zoom, compared to those sights.
-There's been a lot of discussion about the amount of weapons you can carry. Ghost Mode brought the limit down to one primary and a pistol. I feel like it'd be fine if you just split the difference between normal and Ghost Mode's restrictions. My idea: the player loadout should allow for a primary weapon slot, a secondary weapon slot, and a pistol slot. The secondary weapon slot would only carry half or a third of the ammo capacity of the primary. This allows for a nice bit of flexibility in one's loadout, while still giving importance to the primary slot and emphasizing it as the biggest tool in the toolkit.
-Upgrade the thermal vision to the black and white version. See "Sicario" for the black and white thermal vision. Or maybe have the Wildlands version as the default thermal vision, with a skill upgrade later on to be able to upgrade it to black and white.
-Ability to blouse the boots. Cmon, you knew it was gonna be on here. I can't stress this enough.
-More useable shirt options. Right now, I find the "Crye Combat Shirt" and "Fleece" to be the only useable shirt options for the vast majority of outfit ideas. Everything else has incredible problems that prevent them from being useable shirts. For one thing, most of the shirts don't even have camo available to pick from, only basic colors and flannel patterns. And Crye and Fleece are the only ones that have somewhat high collars to come up to the neck to match the "one-hole balaclava" that I'll often choose for my head covering. Otherwise, you end up with an unsightly gap between the top of the collar and the bottom of the balaclava.
-Gun paint camo should correspond to uniform camo. Why is it that I can give myself AOR1 camo for my outfit, but then can't use the same camo scheme for my gun? And conversely, why are there so many gun paint camos that don't exist for my outfit camo options? This doesn't make any sense. I'm not going to use the crazy amount of gun paint camos that don't correspond to uniform camos.
-Iris changing effect when entering and exiting buildings. This is where the realism went a bit overboard and gameplay suffered. Yes, in real life it would be hard to see into an interior room when entering from a bright sunny outdoors. Yes, your eyes will have to take a second to adjust to the interior lighting. But the amount of darkness and light bloom when going from outdoors to indoors to outdoors again is just really unpleasant when playing the game for hours and hours. For the sake of gameplay, please tone down this iris effect. It just becomes really annoying to have to suffer through over the length of the campaign.
-Add the ability to timeskip and change the time of day. I believe MGS V had an option for this. Since the darkness of night provides additional cover and stealth for the player, it'd be nice to be able to manually control the time of day to allow players to start missions at night. Currently, you can only somewhat alter the time by fast traveling to outposts, which consumes some variable amount of time. It'd be nice to add in this option and give players control.
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