First let me say I disagree with some of what is said and agree with some of what is said. So this isn't a YouTuber zealot reaction.
That being said if you didn't like the Jawoodle video you won't like this one as it is more off-tangent, but I find it enjoyable to look at what others suggest and compare it to what I would envision for the game. If you agree or disagree or hate youtube that's perfectly fine. Sometimes others comments, videos makes me think of something perhaps I forgot or had an epiphany on and as such here are my thoughts on the video. It seems like a lot because a lot was discussed and I wanted to take more time to formulate my thoughts than just post a video and go "watch this" as there are plenty of things I disagree with in it.
No worries mods, I posted this NEW video in the Images and Videos section for you in advance. Just don't merge it with the other as they discuss different things and are not wholly related. It would be like merging all of the 2.0 feedback.
- Random Spawn and Temperature. I can understand some of the randomness with the older spawning mechanics having appeal. I think back then it was fun and annoying at the same time to spawn in a hostile area and try to find your way to safety and the level of threat you faced early on was considerably more punishing. I think that system worked for what we had. With the current quest meta I am not sure traveling 2km to the trader is the most enjoyable experience. I would like to see the other biomes be harder to deal with (not talking progression mode) in terms of dealing with the elements such as temperature, heat exhaustion, freezing debuffs, etc, but still manageable. Ideally you should have to expend reasonable effort to stay alive.
- Food & Water. Part of the issue with the early game is that it's easy to find food and water. Dirty water is in loot by the truckload which makes dew collectors pointless - especially since they generate heat. Also food used to be far more rare and it was common early on to kill wildlife for meat to cook. I think part of the problem is that traders are tied to larger cities and these cities generally have a lot more resources in them. You should probably start near a small town and have the next nearest city be a bit further out. Once you get through some quests the trader will point you to a larger city where you would again travel the wilderness to get to the larger city. Naturally you could just venture out with no waypoints and that would be fine as well. In the smaller towns I think some POIs should be locked out of such as larger crack-a-book stores, electronics stores, hardware stores and shamway stores to name a few. I would reduce canned food amounts across the board and reduce dirty water amounts a bit as well. Likewise vending machines would need some tweaks to not be a permanent food source.
- The Telltale Fiasco. I don't think it can be put on TFP and it's unreasonable to think they should eat the cost. I understand why the console community would feel bitter about it. I will say I wholeheartedly disagree with console specific skins. I hate exclusivity in general.
- Biome Diversity. I will say while it is subjective I still agree that the forest is still the most fleshed out and beautiful biome. The others feel like they need more variety within the biome to make up for the lack of biodiversity (trees/shrubs/etc). Instead of a tree spawn what about a polluted and visibly toxic water source for the wasteland? The burnt forest could have flaming trees and patches of area with trees. This is more of a nice "would be nice" feature.
- Biome Badges. I do 100% agree that the biome badges should have been redone into something less "gamey" and more realistic such as PPE (personal protective equipment) and agree that the challenges associated with them could use some more fleshing out. Also I feel like he misses the point of progression being 100% optional. Seems like it's a point that is left out often. May be more of a debatable topic but I do think without a shadow of a doubt that integrating the progression system with traders. The trader system is basically the progression path anyway so if you don't like traders then you likely are not playing progression anyway. Much like the bicycle you could have traders issue a biome quest (with other quests still available if you don't wish to progress) which would in turn issue you PPE needed for the next area. This would negate the need to balance out the challenges to find out how fast people should progress through the content allowing the developers to set desired timeframe goals. Also I very much dislike the loot caps not lifting once you have gotten the wasteland badge. At the very least once I complete the story/main progression allow me to go back to sandbox rather than be stuck on linear loot caps.
- Hard vs Soft Caps. Something that is inconclusive as well is whether biome progression should stem from a more restrictive DoT system compared to a less restrictive concept such as harsher temperatures and harder enemies. I would personally prefer soft caps over hard caps as it negates the need to two separate models which would need to be developed concurrent with each other. Typically the obstacles would be gear and weapon loadouts that would allow you to tackle the harsher weather and harder zombies, while still offering masochists out there the ability to venture inside these areas and even eek out a living but with great effort that would ultimately hinder their progress. That being said there seems to be a reasonable contingent of people who prefer the more linear path or perhaps they are just suggesting that the progress update should be linear as anything else could be skipped, either way so long as I can toggle it off and still experience the story I wouldn't mind either way.
- Storms. I think the storms look neat, but I agree that simply killing you (or for the more pedantic among you trying very hard to kill you without plenty of healing) is bad game concept. You encourage players to not interact with the storms in any meaningful way and the beautiful designs get lost as I am hunkered down inside. Also, on a slight tangent ARK Scorched Earth does an amazing job with the look of sandstorms. I think storms could be enhanced by allowing players to travel in them at a danger cost as compared to a numerical I need this many healing items cost. It's like gambling which adds randomness and that is a good thing. Such things as lowering visibility, doubling world zombie spawning temporarily, making all zombies while the storm is going on feral, reduce stamina or max HP temporarily during the storms or have a chance for debuffs to appear such as lacerations. Any combination of that to me would be 100x better than a flat DoT that makes the value proposition for venturing outside practically a waste of resources and effort.
- LBD vs Magazines. I disagree with his take. I think the ship on this one has sailed and has sailed more than once. I am personally tired of swapping this system out in exchange for working on newer systems or bring back other legacy systems. Magazines still make sense. You pick one up and you learn from reading it. I get that many find the older system with some tweaks would be a better system and I agree. Tweaking the old system for balance would have been better than developing newer systems and for sure magazines have their own issues with people not finding what they want so we had to add modifiers in, etc. I agree with Laz in that perks + LBD would be a good system, sadly it's one best used for a future title.
- Random Loot. I also disagree that the old random loot system was good. Finding an auger day 1 bypasses so much of the early game that I think it actively does more harm than good. I think the tables could be loosened a little more, but definitely not 100% random or to the degree that you are finding Augers on day one. An example of this is getting a T0 bone knife from a large ammo stash as an example. That feels terrible. I think there are other ways to make the game random that don't negate large swathes of gameplay so I think modifying the loot tables to be a bit more random wouldn't hurt, but within reason. A loot slider would be nice, but I imagine coding that would be annoying. Perhaps if you just had low, medium and high loot values with medium being the default it wouldn't be too bad.
- Bicycles & Travel. I don't think making them easier to craft is the solution. I think lowering stamina cost to sprinting and/or increasing the base speed of a player would be better. I like being on foot early on in the sense that it makes the bicycle meaningful when you get it. Otherwise what's stopping people from rushing the Minibike which is much better than the bicycle? Offsetting the time it takes to get around on foot would make early game travel a bit more enjoyable and while it may not fix the issue of people rushing quests it does make me feel better about not having a bike.
- Water. He does make a valid point that water is pretty pointless in the game. Bodies of water offer nothing of value. We need fishing and water POIs. Also, can we please get coded blocks that float on water rather than two rods that dive into the water? I wouldn't mind seeing empty jars come back with other ways to remove excess jars (consume on use as an example), but it does seem a large contingent of people dislike it so I would be ok with some fishing and water POIs to make water great again. As I stated earlier. Water is too easy to come by early on and I would lower the amount of murky water found in loot tables outside of bathrooms, food crates, etc. No more jars of water in random loot.
- Farming. While brief I think the plots are fine enough. I get that it's not as immersive but functionally there isn't much of a change. I think farming should be a solution for food scarcity. Making it harder while also making finding food harder would go a bit far.
- Zombie Types. I think the behemoth would be nice to see return in some fashion. Like a roaming mob that would lurk in wasteland cities. You could even add some lighting or sound cues to let the player know that the behemoth has spawned and is roaming around. The cheerleader, etc I don't need to see returned. I think seeing a cheerleader spawn in an office POI wouldn't make much sense anyway. I would like to see some more minor zombie variations rather than just colored clothes.
- Weapon Types. We have enough weapons. With loot tiers for each adding a few extra here and there I don't think will add much. I would much rather inceease the randomness and longevity by adding back in parts quality. Yes, we have modifications that fill a similar role and no it's not hard to add another section for parts. The ability to find an SMG is nice, the time you would take to find better parts would inevitably increase the longevity of the game for many as they try and scrap SMGs to get better parts.
- Off-Grid Exploration. I agree that there needs to be more rewards for going off the questing path. Laz mentioned perhaps bandits in remnant POIs could help with that, but generally speaking it would be nice to feel rewarded for going off the beaten path. Random supply drops that are not marked on the map, bandits with nice caches hiding out in a wilderness POI all would give me a reason to explore and would make the world more fun to explore.
- Blood Moons Game. I don't necessarily think the game is pulling resources away from 7D2D, but with how lackluster 2.0 was I can understand why people might come to that conclusion. In short. I don't think this is the case.
