It is interesting how often people who admit that they've been playing this for years complain about how it is for new players and suggest that the reasons they want things a certain way is the same reason a new player would. A new player doesn't know how things were different in older alphas and will play the game without that knowledge. They will like it or not like it based solely on the version they start with and not based on what used to be in the game or how the game used to function. Veteran players are the ones who complain about changes from past alphas, not new players.
Everyone plays the game they way they want to. It's a benefit of a sandbox type game as well as a detriment. If someone hates crafting, then they don't care about whether or not crafting is balanced... at least, not unless crafting is superior to whatever they are doing. If someone hates questing, they don't care about questing being balanced unless it is superior to whatever they are doing, etc. Now, we see a lot of posts complaining that quest rewards are not balanced and where are the complaints coming from? People who don't like questing. Those who do like questing may agree that more balancing is needed but they aren't the ones complaining. The ones who are complaining are those who don't want to quest and don't want anyone with another play style to have better progression than them. It's the same with traders in general. Those who don't want to use traders complain about traders, not because there are traders but because the game is easier if you use traders than if you don't. It isn't that traders affect them if they aren't even using them but that they want their play style to be superior to other play styles or at least equal. The thing is, different play styles being easier or more difficult is not a bad thing. A lot of people who choose to play a more difficult play style choose to do so
because it is more difficult. If you make it easier for them, they won't like that either. And there's no reason why anyone should ask that the game be made more difficult for other people when it won't even affect their own game.
There will never be perfect balance between play styles. Some are going to be harder than others. Some are going to progress more slowly than others. And because this is early access and not complete, changes made can improve or worsen some play styles and even make some play styles no longer possible. That's just how it is going to be. It's why there are mods.
Even so, more balancing is needed and there is little doubt they will continue balancing things through gold. It's much better to offer suggestions for balancing rather than complain about things being changed. The former could be listened to by the devs and might help to make the game better, while the latter will likely be ignored as being a "vocal minority" and nothing will change.
Regarding the use of mods... writing your own mod is something most people won't ever do in their life for any game. However, there is no reason they can't use a mod someone else wrote. Mods are mostly plug and play in this game. Copy it to your mods folder and you're usually done. Hardly rocket science. Will most people use mods even if it's easy? Of course not. That won't stop them from playing the game, though. They just might not play it as long as someone who does use mods. For those who care enough about the game to want things changed, they have easy access to mods that are already written and are easy to use. Mods have been around for many, many years and are found even for some casual games. Not everyone would know about mods but a lot will and anyone who has friends playing the game will probably even be told about mods from their friends. For the rest, they are either going to like or dislike the game and that's not really going to change no matter what the devs do. Any change might make one person like it more and make another person like it less, so it's really not changing anything other than which people like or dislike the game.
