Good morning everyone,
I have been enjoying reading about A21 and can't help but play now and think of all the ways it will change my playstyle. I hope in a good way! I have been playing a long time and know that I have settled into some habits. Some good, some bad.
I am very used to getting those initial 4 sill points and putting one in master cook and one in Advanced Engineering. These let me cook all the basic things and make a forge. So, even if I can't find a cooking pot, I can make one fairly easily.
I also admit that I take full advantage of the fact that when you can craft a quality in one item (a lvl 3 stone shovel) you can craft it in any tier of that item (lvl 3 steel shovel). So, as stated on here, once you have your advanced engineering to 7 and you have a lvl 5 iron pick axe and you finally get the steel tools schematic, you don't have to start over again at lvl 1 steel pickaxe. You go straight to lvl 5.
I am excited about seeing how the change with the magazines changes this way of playing and the mindset as to when certain things are available to craft.
I do have some questions/ concerns about A21 that I would like to mention. (these are all just in my opinion, not unyielding truth)
1. I know that bandits are exciting for a lot of people, but I do hope that this does not become a bandit game. It is a zombie game and I hope the focus stays that way.
2. As far a game balance ( and I know this is being worked on actively). In my current game I am on day 68. Of all the weapons and tools I use I have Tier 3, Grade 6. For the tools and shotguns I was able to craft grade 5 and had made them. I then started getting grade 6 in nearly everything. Auto-Shotgun, all tools, M60, etc. The only 'issue' with this is that I had been planning on climbing the Fortitude Tree and Machine Gun skill to be able to make a grade 5 M60, once I got the schematic. Once I got the M60 Grade 6, there was no point. The same exact thing happened with the Impact Driver. I had a grade 5 socket wrench and got the schematic for the impact driver. I thought I would get enough skill in Salvage Ops to make a decent one, then got a grade 6 impact driver from a quest.
Maybe the separation of crafting from skills will take care of this problem. As what you craft and the grade that you craft it has nothing to do with your skills anymore.
3. In regards to the terrain in the wasteland. The burnt forest and wasteland were combined in the recent past. That is cool. The biggest thing is that because of that, even when outside cities, the ground is littered with I-Beams and piles of cinder blocks. This makes driving the 4x4 an arduous task. Is this the intent? To have there be a negative when using the late-mid to late game vehicle when in the late game biome? It has great inventory, great speed, but you can't go anywhere quickly unless you are on a road/ trail? Lastly I know the focus is gameplay of realism and I am totally cool with that, but I have to ask, How did all those cinder blocks and I-Beams get out there in the middle of the woods anyway?
My suggestion would be to make the areas outside of town burnt forest, with burnt forest ground and the settled areas (and a radius outside of them) have the full wasteland terrain.
I apologize for the novel, but I have been thinking about these things for a while and they all came out at once.
Thank you for your time and all that you guys do!