Why this version "sucks". It is because this game lost its survival aspect. It is no longer about setting up a base in an iron node, find leather to craft a forge, find some very rare seeds ,craft a hoe and plant a farm while eating scraps of food and protecting your base. In A16 you usually had to either hunt a lot of animals or turn into cannibalism until the farm would give you crops. Of course turning into cannibalism would also mean having too few hit points and weakened you dramatically . The firearms were very rare, bullets were spare and you'd have to survive until mid-game with melee and bow weapons. Feathers were also very rare but at least the damage of the bow and its ranged headshot capability made it worth it even end game. Explosive arrows were fearsome even in A16.
With A17 half of the above was gone. Level gated forges, zombies that have path finding algorithmic sentience and everything from melee weapons to base building nerfed because why not. I got bored really fast in A17 but at least I could still level up and progress the game stage fast. A17 was somewhat salvageable for about 100 hours.
A18 arrives and it's turning into a mess. This version focuses solely on looting and not about preparation and base building as you can find almost ANYTHING from looting :
Have high enough looting perk and you find tones of food. No longer do you have to hunt, farm and scrap leftovers but you find food everywhere. No longer do you have to hold your base, protect your underground farms from zombies but just find canned food in perfect quality. Farms are no longer viable as you never have to worry about food and you'll eventually find schematics for crafting canned food out of ...corpses...
And the list of unrealistic things just grows:
Boiled food is poisoned but canned foods are perfect quality.
You somehow find endless amounts of ammo. In a zombie apocalypse. Which ravaged the world for decades.
Somehow you get to have a nuclear powered sentient turret that spits bullets made out of iron with your bare hands.
You are both a great blacksmith and a great warrior.
A knifed weapon and an axe are less efficient than a club.
Melee weapons have equal or less range than zombie hands.
You learn to craft items with perks but require the schematics to build them.
Point black headshots can't instantly kill zombies.
Zombies can somehow explode and damage items behind concrete walls and steel walls.
Somehow a bucket of water produces infinite water and is more efficient at stopping zombies than barbed wire.
Get tones of items that help you build an entire base. It's no longer about finding those few leather parts
Point black headshots can't instantly kill zombies.
Zombies , with almost perfect clothing, have a 2% of spawning an "loot bag" upon death.
Zombies are no longer harvestable but just poof out of existence. In previous versions you'd have to clear the corpses to build new traps which by itself was a challenge as only axes could clear out corpses and only from a close distance.
Structures can literally reconstruct themselves with the use of quests and are the main source of rare ingredients.
Those rare ingredients are also no longer craftable. Can you craft ELECTRICAL COMPONENTS? Sure. Can you craft literal ROCKETS? How about a 4x4 vehicle? But GOD FORBID if you try to craft mechanical parts and springs. Those things are just too tech savvy for the average joe to comprehend.
The reason the game now looks so unrealistic and imbalanced is this: The developers don't even know how to play their own game. You can see it from the total lack of melee or bow weapons, the horribly misplaced traps, the constant use of firearms and the lack of base complexity.
So when you say the game sucks you are right. It's somewhat salvageable because kids like shooting stuff. And this version disregards melee and bow weapons . And this is apparent from the fact you can bulk craft ammo for a cheaper price.. assuming you find the right schematics. It's all about guns and schematics now.
This game should probably have new tags: Zombie,crafting,looting,schematic reading simulator. And I'm not even sure about the zombie thing. In all the games I have ever played zombies die to headshots.
