This.
I would hate GTA to focus primarily on online bullshyt.
I honestly don't like GTA online and I'm one of the biggest multiplayer stans on this board.
Also, regarding the story arc direction from GTA IV to V... I really hope they reverse direction and provide protagonists with at least a shred of some type of real redeeming quality.
Vercetti, although heavy in the criminal world, really wasn't that bad of a guy and was caught in a fukked up situation based on a mistake.
Niko - my favorite main character - was literally trying to leave the evil shyt in his past and was bamboozled into a fukked up situation by his piece of shyt cousin.
But the nikkas in GTAV? Outside of Franklin - I'll always see goodness in black protagonists, sorry - Michael and Trevor are big pieces of shyt. Franklin, though, wasn't a victim of circumstance and willingly went into the bullshyt so I couldn't truly vibe w/ him as much as I wanted to.
I know this is GTA but a big thing for me was somewhat redeemable characters.
Truth is. The entire game needs to be 100% online only. Zero offline. It needs to be a living and breathing world thats always on. even when you're asleep your character lives and does things that you normally do on the daily basis when you play the game. it takes a hit from 2k's VIP...or Forza's AI driver where it recorded how you drove when you were playing the game and used that data to create a CPU version of you when you were offline. this way its always on and the world doesnt have to stop when you stop.
This way you can include an over arching story into the online mode. But the story would have to be controllable by us players meaning. You can start off a bad guy and turn good. you can start off good and turn bad. or some where inbetween. and doing so will affect the story arc. This happens in those huge pc games like eve online or elite dangerous. But it can be done a bit tighter in the next GTA.
I also need destructible buildings. and buildings that can catch on fire, etc.
WE need real estate we can make money off of.
But an always online GTA with a US sized map at worse and World map at best. is whats needed. you have that large of a map you need people to fill it up. which is why it needs to be online all the time. and you can add NPC's as well. Every store is robbable(lol) every bank too. but this also means they have to make real life hard to pull this stuff off. cops, swat, ATF, DEA, FBI have to be in that A... real quick when they catch you doing something big or having a pattern of doing it.
forget bounties. You rob multiple liquor stores and you aint masked up. other players can go in their and get your most wanted photo, run up on you and take you in to the cops for a reward(has to be a good reward worth the hassle. the bigger the criminal the bigger the reward.) you catch a crime boss moving heavy weight, state to state. you get paid the big bucks and can get a job at FIB with a nice salary. or of course you can off the dude and try to take his stuff since his crew might be in disarray. your choice. good guy. or bad.
The stock market has to be in the online version. and stocks move according to things happening in the real world.
a lot of cars being blown up and replaced. morris mutual stock should skyrocket.
people playing it safe and not blowing up people's cars as much and the stock should tank.
You should be able to steal anyone's ride. no matter how luxurious it is. The higher price the car, the odds you will get caught by the cops or the feds trying to bust up a car ring. They might even be setting you up at the drop off spot. you never know.