The reason why they were called so, is because after release of A17 they began adding sh.t players never asked for and removed a lot of nice stuff, players would have wanted to remain at that time! Who's at fault? easy, who does the development? there's the answer
But instead of admitting their mistakes, they chosed to blame and gaslight community in their town hall stream like its all the community's fault that they delay bandits again! A lot of legacy gamers gave up already by A17
The things added were on the checklist they promoted during the crowd funding campaign as far as I know and if I recall correctly the developers stated early development focused on the survival elements. So when they finally got around to getting the RPG mechanics in it felt as if they were changing the original concept of the game.
This isn't to say I particularly enjoyed TFPs interpretation of RPG elements and think that a lot of it was counter productive to the core elements of the game and frankly made the game worse overall. I don't mind RPG elements, but when they were added it felt incorrectly adapted or just made the game worse. Things like parts quality and schematics, clothing and armor, quests for me made the game worse while other things have more mixed benefits/drawbacks and some things are just gravy.
Parts quality for me was just better for longevity although I could do without schematics and while not out I feel like Legendary Weapons will just be an inferior parts quality mechanic. I didn't like the combining weapons aspect of the quality concept and that is what they wanted to bring over. I'll give it a fair shake but I am woefully optimistic at best.
Clothing and armor made more sense and while you looked silly, now everyone has RPG gear with bonuses. I prefer simple damage reduction calculations for armor myself with the occasional speed boost running shoes. Though the aesthetics are cool, in my perfect world I would make the current armor cosmetic and go back to making armor just damage calculations though I can understand why others might find that less enjoyable than the myriad of buffs obtained with sets. So a plus for aesthetics and a negative for practicality for me.
Quests and cities have left exploration in shambles and the game feels much more on rails than before. Some of this is self-imposed but the reward structure for quests is simply too large to ignore. Cities, while amazing for aesthetics have killed any reason to leave a city to search for items as everything can be found in a city. That being said cities have fundamentally changed the game from feeling like a $10 indie title to a full fledged AA game and the way they worked the tile system into RWG was well done. If they can offer reliable reasons to explore the wilderness then cities will be a 100% net positive for me. Quests I am just not much of a fan. I prefer finding ways to break into a building rather than being on a guided tour filled with traps. It's a survival sandbox game not a Mario title. That being said I do enjoy some of the quests, I just wish every POI wasn't setup like a linear maze.
The progression system was a mess if I am being honest. I can appreciate a level curve for zones but I wish it was more natural via difficulty (which they have started to do). Instead of biomes killing you in a few minutes. I think the progression is in a decent enough spot currently though and the changes to the badges, storms, etc have rectified 90% of my issues with progression.
Zombie triggers, while awesome for saving resources makes some POIs infuriating and zombies spawning from thin air or in silly locations like hiding inside of a wall? Why? We couldn't make zombies a threat in themselves that they have to jump out from walls to offer some challenge? The developers discussed roaming zombies in POIs but I have not yet found a single one. More roaming zombies and, if needed, more challenging zombies (whether they be faster, stronger, more of them, whatever) and less zombies in walls and nonsense locations. Triggers also have the benefit of fixing people chain pulling entire POIs for clearing, but also tangibly hurt stealth mechanics with many of the triggers. A mixed bag.
Traders are nice and while it took some time to balance I think traders (acting as a trader) are in a decent spot for people to fill the gaps between loot.
There are tons more things that have been added that are good, bad and mixed. Overall I am happy with the current state of the game and my major concern is exploration and diversity of gameplay outside of simply adding new POIs.
This is so true.
It's kind of surprising TFP, and indeed any developer, listens to us (forum users) as much as they do.
Commercially, pretty much all your significant direct revenue comes from people who'll buy the game, never install a mod, never post about it anywhere and will probably play 10-30 hours in a handful of playthroughs.
TFP have to cater to those people, or they wouldn't have survived as a business.
Once you understand that, a lot of decisions made about the game make sense.
That makes no sense. If you have zero idea of what other players want because they are silent doesn't mean you cannot infer things from those that are vocal so long as it is reasonable, matches with your vision and/or is commented on by enough people that it persuades the developers. Why people think that no feedback is better than selective feedback in this case is beyond me.
newsletter.mod.io
