I think GTAO being called a cash grab was warranted prior to stuff like Cayo Perico, where it was a pain in the ass to grind money as you basically had to have a group of friends to play heists with, or you had to pay up. Yeah drug selling and gunrunning were things but they're side stuff, so you don't get that much money from them. If you wanted to enjoy stuff like vehicles, you had to grind for a whiiile. Now it's not so hard.
Heists prior to Cayo Perico weren't that lucrative. And drug selling and gunrunning give a lot of money for a moderate time investment. Full stock sale of gunrunning gives you 1 million $ (that's 500k profit if you buy the supplies) and depending on the mission you get it only takes like 20 minutes. Cocaine and Meth are also really profitable. The Nightclub gives a lot of passive income and you can sell goods, that are acquired completely passively. Just do sell missions every now and then and get over a million for a short sell run. I really don't see how the game can be called a cash grab at any point. Even back when money was harder to acquire, things were also less expensive, and there were less things to buy. People, who have been playing the game for a long time, have run out of things to buy, and when something new is released, they tend to already have enough money and can simply buy it. That's how easy money is to make, even before Cayo Perico. There's just a ton of people, who have absolutely no sense for making money in games. They won't even look up anything online to help them.
Worst thing about Online that it encourages griefing and vehicles like the Oppressor Mark II or the Deluxo are way too overpowered.
User-made gamemodes are amazing, it's just too bad not as many people play them as much.
You're one of those people, that complain in chat, whenever I kill them, right?
Just being killed every now and then is not griefing. If they pin you down, stalk you and kill you over and over again, preventing you from actually playing the game, that is griefing, but that is relatively rare, and can be counteracted by going into passive mode or switching sessions. You can even go into an invite only session, if you hate other players so much. I know, it's an online game, but there really isn't any reason to hang around with other players, if they only bother you. You can enjoy your cars in a private session where you are completely alone.
The game does encourage killing other players, and that's fine, cause that's the point of the game. There are bounties, that can be put on players, the game tells you when someone sells something and actively tells you to go mess with them, sure. Which is also why that's not griefing. It's part of the game. It's a PvP game. It's about gang wars. You can recruit other players and prevent rivaling motorcycle clubs or CEO companies from doing their business. Some of the most fun comes out of that. Even recruiting other players is just temporary. It's not a game, where positive interactions with other players are necessary or even wanted. You don't drive around Los Santos and when you encounter someone, start a conversation with them. You'll most likely kill them, if only because you might fear, if you don't, they will kill you first.
But the game does not encourage griefing. You can report players for griefing, you can vote them out of a session. Not that that does anything, but that's the opposite of encouragement. And there is no reward for it. Griefing is its own reward. It's the tears in chat, that incentivize these people.
The Oppressor Mark II and the Deluxo are not that powerful. Hate for the Oppressor is widespread, but people would probably feel better about it, if they knew, that with it, I end up killing myself more often than others. Flying against lampposts and buildings, getting flipped over and falling to my death, accidentally blowing myself up, because I can't lock onto the car and have to aim, while chasing it on the ground, and the Oppressor is pointed slightly downward. If someone gets out of his vehicle, I'm toast, cause the missiles won't lock on. And I have to wait 5 minutes to resummon it. If I want to stop a car, like a drug vehicle or a Gruppe Sechs van from a random event, since I can't blow it up, and I can't use any handheld weapons while on it, I have to get off it, get into a normal car and then continue the chase, losing precious time. The lock-on missiles are complete and utter dog shit. I have blown all of them on some targets without hitting once. The ones of the Deluxo are better, but the Deluxo is a lot slower and I'm often too late to destroy shipments, because I literally can not chase some vehicles. Helicopters are way faster. They always outfly me in my Deluxo. The Deluxo also flips over constantly. Often other players have blown up my Deluxo, while it was laying on its back like a turtle, trying to flip over.
And I'm relatively ok with all these weaknesses. Without them, they probably would be overpowered. It's annoying, but every vehicle will annoy you in slightly different ways. Different vehicles have different strengths and weaknesses, and the Oppressor and Deluxo are certainly really, really good in a lot of ways. But if they were that good, literally everyone would be using them all the time. A Nightshark can take so many hits, I would run out of missiles on my Oppressor and would have to resummon it to get new ones. And even then, it's not guaranteed I will finish it off. But if they are so overpowered, you can just use them. There you go. Now you are on equal footing with everyone else, who uses them, and have an edge over anyone, who doesn't.
I know it sucks, if you enjoy other vehicles more, because they look cool. As a Zhaba-enjoyer, I really feel how much it sucks, that the vehicle is so slow and hard to control. I'd also like to drive my Fränken Stange more often, but what's the point if I get blown up immediately anyway?
