hello, recently started on pc after playing on switch. almost all of my experience in gaming is on PC and this is my first shooter played on console since i was in my early teens. i want to start by saying that i really enjoy this game and would very much like to see it succeed and even thrive both on PC and consoles, which will definitely take some work and fixing/adjusting things. all that said, i would like to point out a few things as well as very strongly recommend something, all of which relevant to the title here.

your game will be competing against several other extraction-style shooters on the PC and there are some good titles out. a very serious issue that has been plaguing this genre of game and has already been a problem on the console version of vigor is a very high volume of cheaters infesting these games. i can almost promise you that this game will have very serious issues with this on release and my concern is that the game will so quickly become infested that it will heavily impact the amount of people willing to play and stick with this game. the negative impact cheaters have on loot and extract games is amplified because when you die, you lose your gear and anything you would have gained that round. so, understandably, people's tolerance for dying to cheats is pretty low.

cheaters and cheat developers both target extraction shooters for their potential to generate income for them. not just to ruin people's days or because of a lack of skill. a potential issue i see happening is accounts that are created, power leveled/progressed, and sold. especially with plans for weapons and items being so hard to obtain without spending money. with vigor being free to play, they will literally be making money for free at your expense (loss of players, unwillingness to spend money in shop due to uncertainty as to whether or not the issue will ever be fixed, etc). another thing cheaters will do in these games is sell cheater-carried runs where they will literally clear lobbies of people for the customer so the customer gets free reign on loot. with the ability to boost the quality of crates and loot, this makes these sold runs even more appealing to would-be customers.

if you make vigor a game that has a low likelihood of running into cheaters, that alone will give you a leg up on many of the extraction shooters you're competing with. my VERY strong suggestion is to actively put effective and consistent effort into making it as difficult and as unprofitable as you possibly can for people to cheat and/or produce cheats for this game. i suggest actively looking for and shutting down their ability to sell accounts (dedicated websites, discords, you can even find ebay sellers doing this) as much as possible. i would also recommend you consider following other game developer's lead on taking legal action against cheat developers whenever possible. if possible, i would also suggest flooding the cheat market with near 1:1 copies of cheat websites that have fake cheat installs that flag and hardware ban people who try to download and use them. anything you can do to make it risky and unprofitable both to cheat and to produce and sell cheats will be helpful to your game.

i hope you take this seriously, as just using an anti-cheat alone will not do the trick. this is a constant battle and cheats have become a severe problem in gaming and it will absolutely ruin your game and quickly make your active player count plummet if you don't take strong measures both before and after full release. don't be a game people tell others to stay away from because it's infested. be the game people recommend to those who enjoy the genre and are frustrated by the large volume of cheats they run into in other games.