I agree with the OP.
The entire grind to level 20 (that's the earliest level you can unlock anything useful is tedious, long, boring, and repetitive. Just like my summary.
I don't understand why the hardcore fans aren't screaming their lungs out. Don't you see we have 0 freedom now?
If you don't take certain perks, you loose. You'll end up with 1/1 stamina real soon because the drain is so fast. In alpha 16 smart players could make their life easier by taking certain stuff. Now you are 100% obliged to take the same order of perks to get anything done really.
The number 1 fault right now is.... It's a grind game, where grinding is penalized?????????? What kind of messed up logic is that. Grind some wood or stone early game and you're already at 60 stamina maxxed out, without having died. There's no choice, just to eat all the time or you automatically die due to low stam and hp.
I don't think it's a more difficult game. It's just more tedious and boring. And the level gates is way off. I haven't died once in A16, up to night 100 doing every horde melee style. Haven't died now in A17 even with other people gamestages giving me cops and doges when I'm only lvl 10.
The most important change for me was to see how combat was, but the zombies are still all glitchy and teleporting. Plus the sleeper spawn is messed up beyond reason. It does not create a difficult game when a zombie kills you after having teleported behind your back right after you cleared the room already. That's a bug, or a bad feature.
The thing with power attacks is also ridiculous. Only thing it does it make regular attacks obsolete. Why add option B just to make option A obsolete, while option B does the exact same thing as option A used to do ?
A16, kill a zombie with some regular hits to the head.
A17, kill a zombie with 100 regular hits to the head, or some power attacks to the head.
See the resemblance?
I don't know what road the devs want to go but after the 500th crossroads of development I don't know what to hope for anymore.
TLDR, it's an entire different game, it's 0% "harder" just more tedious and stretched.
To end on a positive note.... The only thing that brings a smile to my face is the possibilities with more quests and how quests reset POI's. That interaction seems to work at some length at least.
Batman,