17.2 feedback
I love your game. I’ve played for over 3k hours. As much as I enjoy the game, recent design changes have very much diminished my enjoyment. Below I’ll attempt to explain the changes I’m objecting to and what effect they have on my experience. Please understand that this is just candid feedback, I still love the game.
Level Caps – I’ve played the game many ways. That’s one of the things I really enjoy is trying different approaches to surviving. Such experimentation often involves min/maxing along some specific path, like all armor/defense, all weapons/attack, all building/crafting, just run!!? The level caps pretty much kills this sort of experimentation. It forces me down path that the developer seems to want me to go. As much as I enjoy your game, I don’t care at all how you want me to play the game. By limiting my specialization and forcing me down specific paths, you’re simply removing my options and choice, which is what I value in an open world game in the first place. This is especially frustrating when I’m taking the builder/crafter path as by the existing level caps, my game doesn’t really even begin until level 10-15.
Creature spawning/strength linked to level – In previous versions of the game, creature spawning, and strength was linked to time. The longer the game went, the more dangerous the creatures became. This created an engaging race against the clock. I needed to build and skill up as fast as I could to survive the coming threats. Further, this was customizable by the player. I could adjust the day cycle to introduce a more challenging experience, as with a reduced day cycle, I had less time to prepare. Or I could make the monsters and world conditions very unfavorable to me but increase the day cycle to give me more time to prepare. It was my choice and I could try different things. This also made a sort of sense in the world. I could believe that over time the creatures became stronger and more people became zombies, so life just got harder. This added to the immersion of a survival game. With the change of linking threat to level, I’m not racing against anything and there’s really nothing I can do to try to get ahead. It would probably be best if I just didn’t level up at all, as what’s the point. This also breaks immersion, as it makes no sense why creatures would automatically adjust to me. It feels like a game, not like an apocalypse.
Quest/Vendor – I get it that some people want quests and some signs of life in their apocalypse. I get it. It’s not for me, but in the past, I could just ignore it. I’d ignore/avoid the venders and scrap the quest. No harm, but with the recent level cap changes spending time near the vendor seems nearly mandatory. I just don’t have access to the things I need in the game any more without visiting the vendor. And of course, the game is a lot easier if one just takes the vendors quests. Once again, this feels like the game developers trying to force me down a path, trying to get me to play the game the way they want me to play it, rather than simply providing an apocalyptic playground I can enjoy as I wish. Again, I don’t mind the vendors and quests being there, It’s the changes that make the game near unplayable without interacting with them that I object to.