Most of the things I would see are the kind of stuff that better improves the immersion which can be important for a survival game.
1)
Improvements to third person animations to make characters look more natural when they move and interact with the world. Quite often when I'm playing I get Half Life 1 nostalgia vibes when watching my friends character models move around
2)
Improvements to the player character models and clothing so they look as good as the new zombies. Currently the player models look as dated as the animations.
3)
More immersive first person animations (weapon inertia and weight to movement)
4)
More natural recoil and spray patterns. Sometimes the shooting in this game really annoys me as it feels too point at the enemy and hope the hit lands. Also why does the crosshair stay on screen when ADSing? I've never seen this before in any other FPS game and it's really distracting.
5)
A more organic and rewarding character progression system. Physical skills (recoil control, digestion, stamina etc) are improved over time by doing and mental / intellect skills (crafting tools, blocks, weapons etc) are learnt from schematics or breaking down items at the work bench. The A15/A16 systems were much closer to this type of progression and it tied in so well with the flow of the game play. At the moment I often go AFK during night times which I never did in those alphas as I had plenty to do at night. Now, especially during the first 2 horde nights I never have enough resources to even do anything so I just leave my pc. I suspect I'm not the only one and surely that isn't something the devs intended.
6)
Rework the meat system so that you don't need 5 meat to make 1 grilled meat. This seems to have become a thing in more recent alphas and I don't know why? Why not just reduce the amount of meat you harvest from animals? Or why have plenty of meat from animals but make them rare so if you do find a chicken that could keep you going for a couple of days, a wolf maybe a few days as you would expect. At the moment you need to eat about 5 wolves a day.
7)
Bring back smell! This added to the tension, especially during early game play.
8 )
Better loot distribution in a way that encouraged player exploration. Right now I can pretty much get the same loot in a house as a I can in a military site. More unique containers for the very tough POIs with exclusive loot would be great to see.
9)
Return to the wellness system. It was simple and easy to understand. I haven't been able to wrap my head around any of the digestion systems that have been implemented since that was scrapped.
10)
Animal husbandry - This has made an appearance in some mods in the past and was awesome. Who doesn't want to be a massive glow in the dark boar farming during the Apocalypse?
11)
More guns! I love that guns have been added and I hope to see more.
12)
Tiered crafting stations (Advanced forged, advanced workbench etc...l) - These could help with the longevity of the game and give players more to work towards during the later game
13)
Scarier and riskier nights + Rewards. I recently played Darkwood and whilst playing I was just thinking how could some of the mechanics would sit well in 7 days. Banging on doors, manifesting anomalies, thick silent hill style fog. These types of things are so damn good and would induce hits of fear in players during the night. With a more dangerous night there could be unique loot that is exclusive to night time adventurers.
14) Get rid of
clipping underground when mounted on a vehicle. A real immersion breaker and terrible for PVP servers as you can see through the terrain. The 3rd person camera needs to hug the player more.
15) Add
food degradation. I know this is a bit of a hot topic but if balanced correctly it would keep the players on their toes a bit more during the later game. Currently once you have a farm the food survival part of the game becomes irrelevant. I've actually been enjoying the challenge of keeping myself fed during the early game. I'm always scrounging houses and everything I can to not starve.... Although it is annoying the amount of animals a player needs to eat a day in order to not starve in A19.
16) The
end game needs fleshing out. At the moment it can be hard to find a reason to play much beyond day 50+ Multiplayer, be it alliances, trade or PVP can really help in this department but one of the reasons I tend to not bother is the sacrifice made to zombie numbers on servers. The world as it is can already feel incredibly empty as most zombies seem to now be allocated to POIs as sleepers. It can feel like there is very little zombie activity out in the world and this only gets worse on multiplayer servers. NPC bandits aren't really something I'm that fussed for but maybe rescuing survivors to help run your base could be a way to expand the end game.
17)
Remove damage bonuses that guns gain from mods and quality. Surely the bullets do the damage? We've got different bullet types already so maybe add more and instead the parts and mods should effect recoil, accuracy, durability, ergonomics. The bullets that do the most damage can just be made rare and hard to come by. Crap ammo can be plentiful.
18)
Additional Settings for starting new worlds. Because it's a sandbox game and there are a lot of players with different requirements the more settings the better! Players who don't want zombies to dig should be able to turn this function off. How about controlling the max world height and depth? I suspect this would help with performance.
I think the game is in pretty good shape at the moment. I love the new zombie ragdoll. Combat feels better than it every has done. It still has some serious performance issues and I'm no fan of the perk system but I've actually enjoyed A19 unlike A17 / A18.