As we are approaching the release of the Summer DLC of 2022 on July 26th, we decided to hold multiple polls with the GTA Online Community on Reddit, asking them about some of the popular features they would like added or changed in the game. And the responses were very interesting, to say the least.
Following are the top 10 features and changes requested by the GTA Online Community:
10. Modify Original Heists for 2 Players
The Heists Update in 2015 introduced a brand new 4-player cooperative experience for GTA Online, giving players the chance to team up to pull off a string of intense multi-part heists, raids, and robberies. However, as time went on, the payouts split among players wasn't enough as things started to get more and more expensive and at the same time, payouts for newer heists (Doomsday, Casino, and Cayo Perico) got even bigger.
As a quick comparison, the highest-paid Heist, i.e, The Pacific Standard Job pays 1.25 million split among 4 players, whereas The Cayo Perico Heist pays over 1.5 million on average for a solo player. Moreover, it's easier and quicker to complete as compared to Pacific Standard Job.
Thankfully Rockstar Games has announced that payouts will be increased for select Heists. Since the Heists have been designed the way they are, it is technically possible to modify the missions so that a minimum of 2 players will be required to complete them like Setups and Finales of the Doomsday Heist.
9. Mansions & Aircraft Carriers
Another highly requested feature by the community is the ability to buy Mansions and Aircraft Carriers. There are multiple mansions in Los Santos like the Richman Mansion, Madrazo Mansion, etc. that can be made available for purchase by Rockstar Games.
Similarly, The USS Luxington is an Aircraft Carrier that appears in EMP Setup of the Humane Labs Raid Heist and free-mode Business Battles. And a lot of players would like to buy it in order to store and showcase their aircraft.
And there are a plethora of players who are willing to pay a good amount of money to own one of these similar to the Galaxy Superyacht or Luxor Deluxe, which costs up to 10 million.
8. Better Vehicle and Garage Management
Over the past 8.5 years since the release of GTA Online, the number of vehicles and properties that can be owned by a player has increased to the point that managing and remembering the locations of over 250 vehicles in more than 20 different garages can get cumbersome for any player.
Obviously, there are about 600 vehicles in the game that can be purchased. But that doesn't even include over 130 Pegasus vehicles that can be owned by the player and do not require any storage. Hence, the need for a better system to manage vehicles in our garages.
That's why we created our MyBase System, which allows you to track and display all your GTA Online vehicles across all your garages and properties.
However, there are a lot of ways a better system could be implemented in the game itself. Rockstar Games can implement a menu to rearrange vehicles in the garages without needing to drive them manually.
Rockstar can also modify the vehicle menu that categorizes vehicles by their Class, similar to Pegasus, when calling the Mechanic. This is definitely needed because we do not have any control over which garage is placed at the top of this menu.
Moreover, a list of recently used vehicles (say 10) can be provided in the menu, similar to Special vehicles or Personal Aircrafts. This will allow us to quickly spawn those vehicles instead of calling the Mechanic every time.
7. Favorite/Block Contacts
Over the lifespan of GTA Online, we have received a huge number of contacts for our in-game phone. Some contacts don't even accept our calls like Agent 14, Wendy, Lazlow, etc, and some are not used as much by the players like Gerald, Martin, Simeon, etc as they only offer random contact missions that can be launched from the menu anyways.
Moreover, certain calls cannot even be rejected like the ones from English Dave. Even though his calls are primarily for random mission requests like popularity missions for your Nightclub or favors for Kinemusik.
Fortunately, with the previous update, Rockstar Games added a feature where new players will not be overwhelmed with calls from different NPCs over buying properties like Tony, Bryony, etc. However, the issue with unnecessary calls from NPCs still persists including Brucie asking for getting juiced up or Simeon asking for a favor.
Hence, the players are requesting the ability to block certain contacts from their phones. And maybe players want to connect to certain contacts quickly like the Mechanic for calling in a new vehicle or Lester for calling off the cops. The ability to favorite those contacts would be really beneficial to the players.
6. Dedicated Servers & Anti-Cheat For PC and Role-Play Servers For Consoles (Xbox and Playstation)
Let's start with the request for dedicated servers for the PC platform. If you have played on PC for a decent amount of time, you will realize how bad it is. GTA Online on PC runs rampant with modders.
In a public lobby, the large majority of modders will leave you alone. On occasion, you might find yourself trapped in a cage, spontaneously blown to bits or turned into a campfire, and will need to restart your game to get everything back to normal.
If you’re doing missions with randoms, sometimes you may see them cheat during missions. More often than not, their cheating is very covert, such as using god mode or aim bot. But sometimes they will attach a prop to you making it harder for you to use your character.
And that is if you are lucky. Mod menu users have access to your Rockstar ID and can get your IP address as soon as you log in to their session. Unless you are using a VPN, that IP address will provide your location down to the district you are living in.
Mod menu users can join your session, kick you from the session or even pull you into their sessions and mess with you till you close your game. If they want they can even DDOS you. They can keep harassing you because unfortunately, you cannot change your Rockstar ID.
So the PC platform is in dire need of Anti Cheat and Dedicated servers. Fortunately, consoles like Xbox and Playstation with constant firmware updates do not necessarily need these services. IP grabbing and DDOS attacks can also happen on consoles but the situation on the PC platform is way worse.
On the other hand, the PC platform has Role Play Servers for GTA Online like FiveM or Grand RP, etc but consoles do not. Even though these RP servers are not created or managed by Rockstar Games, they provide a far better experience for a wide range of activities.
Even though they are named as such, Role Play is not the main focus of these servers. Maybe you want to participate in game modes like Cops and Crooks or maybe you simply want to ride a variety of vehicles without having to buy them by grinding millions upon millions by spamming the same heist over and over.
All these things are part of these servers that provide features and possibilities that is simply not available in vanilla GTA Online. Not to say the vanilla experience is bad. GTA Online is what it is today because of how much it appeals to gamers worldwide.
5. Imani Tech and HSW upgrades for more vehicles
With The Contract DLC update, we received the Imani Tech upgrades for 6 new vehicles, each belonging to a different class. Players could install a Lock-On Jammer or Remote Control Unit. And former upgrade was an instant hit among the players.
These vehicles are also armored, taking up to 12 Homing Missiles or 5 Sticky Bombs to destroy. This alone changed the PvP meta of the game and became a good deterrent to the infamous Oppressor Mk II.
Even though in the upcoming update, Oppressor Mk II will be getting a nerf, these vehicles will still be useful in free mode sessions. However, the Remote Control Unit feature could be modified a bit to prevent any abuse from players because of how armored it is as compared to other RC vehicles.
With the re-re-release of GTA Online on the next generation of consoles, we received Hao's Special Works (HSW in short) for both, new and old vehicles. These upgrades provided older vehicles like the Banshee or the Sentinel XS, with a much-needed performance upgrade to bring them on par with the best in their respective class as per 2022 standards.
And there is a wide variety of vehicles that could really use an HSW upgrade. Feel free to comment down below on which vehicles you would like to receive an HSW upgrade.
4. Increased Payouts and Improved Missions for Businesses
With the re-re-release of GTA Online on the next generation of consoles, players received an increase in payouts for the Biker Businesses and the Nightclub Business. However, the mission design for Biker sell missions remained the same.
Let's discuss payouts first. If you are familiar with Special Cargo or Import-Export business, you will know that the payouts aren't even close to Cayo Perico Heist. As a quick comparison, you can make an average of 1.5 Million per Heist that takes 35 to 40 minutes to complete.
Whereas, it takes at least 3 hours on average to fill a large warehouse when cycling source missions between 3 warehouses, each of which sells for 2.2 Million (4.4 million on double money event weeks). And those missions currently have to be launched only in Public Sessions. Not to mention the cost of buying crates (18k per 3-crate source mission).
As we can see, it's a night and day difference. And Import Export business is no different, that goes on double money even rarer. Let's move on to the mission design. If you have played any of the businesses, you will realize that only the Nightclub business and the Import-Export business are Solo friendly.
Gunrunning, Special Cargo and Biker businesses are not solo friendly and some missions are downright unenjoyable like driving the Post Op Van for 5 miles in a Public Session that has barely any decent armor or picking up crates that are 4 miles away from your warehouse and you have to make 3 trips in order to get them.
Nightclub missions improved on it by allowing us to upgrade our sell vehicles with armor and weapons. Moreover, players could sell as a CEO, allowing them to use Ghost Organization for a couple of minutes to hide them from other players (even though this feature will not be used as much with sell missions allowed in Invite Only sessions).
Moreover, regardless of the amount of product, players will only be given 1 vehicle for the sell missions. And sell missions are pretty quick. About 3 to 10 minutes in general.
Hence, players are requesting improved payouts and improved mission design for businesses because the current set of missions tends to get boring over time and isn't fun to play anymore.
3. Solo Friendly & Engaging Missions
A huge amount of the content in GTA Online can be played completely solo. However, some of those missions are simply not enjoyable or impossible to complete as a solo player. Take the Post Op Van sell mission, for instance.
When a player launches the mission, the game will spawn 3 vans and their product needs to be delivered in half an hour, which is essentially impossible solo because of how slow it drives. And if the player is unable to deliver the said product in time, the undelivered product is destroyed.
However, if you notice the size of the boxes we need to deliver in that mission, it's obvious that all 15 boxes can be carried by a single van. We can understand that the game wants to encourage co-op gameplay, but it need not force players to do so. A very good example is the Cayo Perico Heist.
In Cayo Perico Heist, the best-valued secondary target, i.e, Gold is only available inside the compound. Ignoring the glitches, that target cannot be acquired by solo players as it requires another player to open the doors. But other, less-valued, secondary targets like Coke, Weed, or Cash, that are available outside the compound can be acquired completely solo.
If Rockstar Games wants, they can modify the missions to support solo gameplay. For example, if a solo player starts a sell mission, then only give them 1 vehicle. And try to make the missions more engaging so it doesn't feel like we are playing a waypoint simulator all the time.
PvP could have played a good role to make the missions more engaging but due to the current state of the game, saying that it is unbalanced is an understatement. Matchmaking with players in session doesn't even exist in the game.
So a player with an Oppressor Mk II can easily go Off The Radar and destroy someone's sale vehicle like the Post Op Van in just 4 seconds. Even if Oppressor Mk II is nerfed in the upcoming update, we have jets like Lazer and Hydra that can destroy sale vehicles just as easily, if not easier.
How about the players use Explosive Rounds to counter them? Then what about new players who do not have Explosive Rounds unlocked. And they cannot unlock them unless they buy a Bunker and spend millions (up to 12 million if they want to Fast Track Research).
As we can see, there is a fundamental flaw here. In order to make money in GTA Online, you need to be better equipped with appropriate gear by spending millions. This is part of the reason the Invite Only sell missions have been requested by the community for years.
A very good example is the Merryweather Gunrunning Bunker sell mission, where you have to fight off waves of enemies at each drop point. And it gets easier if you have a team with you. Plus increasing helper payouts will also encourage co-op gameplay.
Red Dead Online, another Rockstar title, gives 50% of the sale value to each helper. Meanwhile, currently in GTA Online, you get a fixed amount of $5000, which is pennies in this game, for helping a CEO in a sell mission.
2. Inventory Wheel & Improved Interaction Menu
A lot of players have complained about it over the years and the main issue with the current Interaction Menu in the game is that it's too bloated and cumbersome to use. Red Dead Online, which is another online title developed by Rockstar Games, has a feature that makes it easy for players to access their inventory. It's called the Inventory Wheel.
As the name suggests, the inventory wheel consists of items in your inventory. Similar to the weapon wheel in GTA Online, the inventory wheel provides a selection of items that can be accessed quickly instead of going through a drop-down menu like the interaction menu.
Following is a concept made by of our writers, JohnM90GTA. In the image, you can see that items like Body Armor, Snacks, Outfits, etc are quickly accessible by simply opening the inventory wheel.
And the possibilities are endless. We can also have a set of recently used vehicles or aircraft (up to 10) that can be instantly called upon instead of calling the Mechanic every time. We could also have slots used to call our Remote Controlled vehicles or Service Vehicles like the Terrorbyte.
Similarly, the Interaction menu can also be modified to show the list of options, like when calling the Mechanic or Pegasus, that we need to select from. Because currently, we have to scroll left or right to select any of the options.
Honorable Mentions:
Self Radio for consoles
Self Radio is an exclusive feature to GTA Online for PC, which allows you to create your very own customized radio station using music files that are not part of the game itself. These music files can be imported from your computer.
And players can listen to music on a radio station, called Self Radio while driving. And console players would love to have this feature in the game.
Personal Aircraft and Vehicle available at the same time
Due to the current mechanics of GTA Online, players can either only have an active personal aircraft or active personal vehicle at a time, but not both. But what's the issue with that?
The primary reason for this request is because the requested Aircraft will not spawn in front of you but rather at a certain distance (ranging up to a couple of miles). So in order to reach the aircraft, you either have to steal an NPC vehicle and drive there or request a Sparrow/CEO Vehicle to get to it.
There are two solutions to this. Either spawn the aircraft right in front of us (bigger aircraft can be spawned anywhere nearby to allow take-off) or let us have personal vehicles and personal aircraft out at the same time. So that we can use our personal vehicle to quickly get to our personal aircraft.
Maximum number of CEO/MC Presidents in session
Even though there is a perfectly valid reason behind having only up to 10 CEOs/VIPs/MC Presidents in a session, this issue started to become more prevalent with the introduction of Career Builder as part of the re-re-release of GTA V and GTA Online on consoles.
The Career Builder basically allowed new players to become CEO or MC President much early in the game, due to which CEO/MCP limit for Public sessions reach much quicker. Almost every other session, players join, they are unable to register as CEO or MC President because of this restriction. Even if it is just to buy supplies for their Bunker or access their Nightclub computer.
And Rockstar Games has to eventually find a way to address the session activity limitations in place. Because with the upcoming update, new players on PC will also have the same issue because they will have access to career builder. And that will lead to the above-mentioned issues.
1. Fixing Bugs And Glitches
Over the lifespan of GTA Online, it has received about 40 DLC updates. And with each update, comes a plethora of bugs and glitches. To give credit where it's due, Rockstar Games attempts to fix a significant amount of those in the next update.
However, over the years, certain game-breaking bugs and glitches have never been fixed to date, including the infamous Titan Glitch for Special Cargo Warehouse Sale. Not to go too much into details, but basically, this particular bug prevents the player from completing the mission.
However, if the mission is not completed, all the cargo being delivered by the player is destroyed. Even if it is not the player's fault, they lose hours and hours of grinding. The only way to avoid that is by closing the game itself.
Now you can see that there is a major flaw here. Players have to close the game in order to save their hard work. Even then, the player will lose up to 3 crates but it's better than to lose 111 crates for a large warehouse for example.
And this is just one of the innumerable bugs and glitches present in the game that spoil the player experience. Therefore, players want as many bugs and glitches to be fixed as possible.
And these were the Top 10 requested features by the GTA Online Community! Feel free to comment down below on what other features or quality of life improvements you would like to see in upcoming updates in GTA Online.