Yeah, I mean, one of the biggest reasons why I'm so skeptical of this change is the fact that I'm pretty much convinced that the only reason TFP did it was to gain a performance improvement. No bigger picture and no overhaul for a better, more interesting mechanic; just performance boost.
I guess it feels slightly disappointing that they're taking options away and replacing them with uninteresting concepts (like the popping backpacks) instead of something better and refreshing; and after waiting almost a full year for the new update, the feel gets worse.
Now, I just want to be clear that there are many things I love about the update. The retrievable arrows, new POIs, vehicles and weapon mods are great, along with many things. Some people might not like the new health system, but I'm actually eager to try it out, as it at least doesn't feel like an obvious step backwards, a sacrifice in an atempt to gain performance like the loot thing feels.
This isn't accurate. They had several team meetings about this where they hashed out what the pros and cons would be. It is true that the primary reason it was done was because it would help performance and solve duping issues. But they talked about the ramifications and the pros and cons from a gameplay perspective as well.
They ARE successful game designers after all.
They came to the conclusion that in addition to performance gains and ending duping they also wanted to end the meta of farming zombies for mats. You know those old Looney Toon cartoons where the shipwrecked characters see each other as a hamburger and hotdog because they're hungry? The devs felt that too many people look at zombies and see pinatas.
They discussed and came to the conclusion that this is what they wanted to do months ago.
I get the feeling that people assume that the change was a last minute decision by Joel alone and stuck in right before Joel did his video. Not true. It has been implemented for quite awhile but just not revealed. We have genius devs who have made this amazing game but as soon as they do something someone doesn't prefer then all of a sudden they are dopey devs throwing in something stupid that didn't need to be changed to take away choices etc.
The devs can make bad choices. I'm not saying that they can't. However, they've never just done something thoughtlessly. Remember, Madmole, Faatal, Kinyajuu, The Fun Pimp, Prime, Gazz...all smart guys all voted and came to consensus about this particular design choice after debating it and talking about it. Yes, they all could be wrong and it could be the worst decision. But it also isn't a final decision. It is a development experimental decision and they are going to see where it leads.
In my own experience:
Experience points are still plenty of incentive to kill zombies.
There is still the chance of getting loot.
The interaction text on the screen being gone is a fantastic improvement for immersion.
Other choices like stealth, misdirection, avoidance, leading away, etc. are now more equally viable to killing.
Killing and moving on without opening a container menu each time is nice.
It reminded me of when they removed experience for crafting at workstations. Once that was gone it was freeing. At first glance it was taking away an incentive to craft at a station but the result was no more playing the game of menus and timer watching. As I said, not everyone will like it and some will scratch their heads about the why. But assuming that it was thoughtlessly put in without thinking through the gameplay ramifications just because you just barely heard about it is inaccurate.
Faatal, Kinyajuu, Prime, The Fun Pimp, Madmole, Gazz....you really think these guys just use a Magic 8-ball to come up with this stuff?
