Speaking about people being happy about a17 - just count negative forum posts about a17 and all previous.
Nobody can say for entire coomunity, but if there are so many players being upset with an update - isn't it already enough?
Yes, a17 is playable. Some things gone easier (like melee or food), some more complicated (building, digging, crafting, etc - summing to "playing without killing zombies"). It is not good or bad on it's own, but there were and are different styles of playing around, or roles if people aplay together. For example, when a 16 become stable, i was playing with a friend a lot. He was looting, i was at base, building defences, cooking, making farm and a mine to the earth core. He was levelling much faster and got loot i could craft much later or even never (weapons, brass, etc), but there were a base with defences, which made me rather usefull and i did my part of job as to say. Now you can craft almost anything, but building and digging is much tougher. 7 day horde become such difficult as it should be, but not because zombies are smart or strong - because it is harder to become prepared, imo. And i'll be not as usefull as earlier, sitting at base, even if i build it - how can i level up without hunting Z's? TFP didn't like players hunting z's for loot, ok, no problem with loot now (with some excepts), TFP didn't like people digging and avoiding fight, ok, no problem, but what to do else? Where are variants, options, freedom? We could sociolize or trade rare things with other players, but now all people i've seen do the same - loot, run quests or hunt z's for exp. No balance between different playing styles and it's even worse than grind and level gates i thing. Yes, i made some posts about it and i stiil think so, but if to look at the game on the whole now - the main problem, imo, is in that we don't have variants of timespending and levelling. That's why it seems grindy and not funny.
Examples and suggestions.
Difficult to balance exp and resourrces from mining? Why not tie exp to block health? For example, for zombies modifier could be x3, for blocks... x0.5? 600 exp for a boulder and 600 exp for a simple zombie, seems fair to me. Building exp is more difficult, it wouldn't work with one formula for all blocks (600 exp for concrete block is good, but 2 for wooden is useless for example). But even if we won't have any exp from build - just add some more to mining. Make some tests and ta-dam, it's balanced, where am i wrong?
Recipes books or perks. So, you stuffed old recipes into perks, but made new recipes (oh god, why?!). Ok, even if it is silly, it could work, but i don't see reasons, logical and balance reasons. "Knowing some recipes wrom nowhere but must loot others" could be done better. For exapmle, what if crafters could make recipes of something they can craft? Can make 5 tier pistol - can make a blueprint for 5 tier pistol. And someone who loot stuff, could find that pistol or craft it with bought recipe. First one will need plastic, second one - steel. First one will need brass for bullets, second one - lead. Seems balanced for a first view, but idk how to realize it (if it's not possible or worthlessly complicated - please let me know). If it is too complicated - it's better to return recipes or place them in perks more reasonably. Or even make books, that allow you to level some perks, for example.
About level gates - the problem is not in unbalanced builds if you just remove gates, but that people now don't have builds at all. Everybody needs stamina, inventory, craft and some dmg. Some perks need to be added. Some for active hunters, some for builders, just to accent roles and make them self-sufficient. Main thing is to not make people that play alone useless. In previous versions they could max looting or digging, for example, that system worked. Now, when you are capped by levels - neither builds, nor solo focusing. If not remaking the whole system (no levels, some perks are 1-100, some 1-5 etc) - just add new perks and a source of perk points (gaining levels not by killing z's or points by quests for beginning). That will speed up the gameplay? Even if yes, what's bad in it? Anything will be better than how it goes now.
