I get what you're saying with the new guns added, but firearms have always been a mainstream thing. I kinda play the same, choose 1 melee and 2 weapons and that's it, so I'm not a walking army. But I'm also glad devs are adding more weapons to the game, I just don't use the ones I think are out of place. Think I've only ever used the rocket launcher a few times in thousands of game time.Sure, 7 Days to die is not a Loot Shooter, but you have to admit that firearms in A17 and A18 have become much more important. In A16 I had my club and my crossbow and except for the sniper in the horde night I never used a firearm. Since A17 you find so many guns that you could equip a small army with them.
I don't like firearms. They always remind me of those silly shooter games where people do nothing else than running around and shooting. It's boring and unimaginative and I don't want that 7 days to die becomes such a game.
In A18 the M60 was introduced and now it seems to me that almost everyone is only looking for the M60 so they can be Rambo in the horde night. They shoot down at the zombies and throw some grenades and that's the whole defense. Not a very imaginative.
Many base builders I know are afraid of the demolisher. If he explodes then everything that is not steel will be destroyed. And if ten of them come at once then you can already fear the worst because even steel can only withstand a maximum of 4 explosions.
I'm still working on a defense against the demolisher where he won't explode and should get killed by traps. I don't want to use loops or other exploits to reach the goal if possible and I don't want to use firearms but only traps. I've had some ideas but no time to test them yet.
I can't see devs just forgetting about builders and bases it's a huge part of the game. Think devs are adding some new stuff to Intellect tree for builders anyway, less resources to build or something. Maybe a new perk that makes your blocks/traps a bit stronger. Currently I find the blade traps real easy to break.
Thing is with the new demolisher and horde coming all night long I'm enjoying the building now. I like challenge so it's been fun trying to come up with a new design. However I don't mind 'exploits' though. It's just experience of the game after so many hours to know zombie mechanics and use that to our advantage. It's like The Walking Dead, they use bait to lure zombies to wherever they want, or Michonne chaining zombies to use their rotting odor as camouflage. I don't see these as exploits but being smart and surviving.
I just think there's different ways to play the game and it's awesome for doing that. I first started playing I used to gather tons of resources for my castle. Got tired of that went nomad and stayed in tall buildings to avoid horde night. Got tired of that and fought the horde in the street. Now I'm back to building bases again. Even things like using a vehicle to 'cheese' horde night. If you join a server on day 100 it's actually an option to survive, granted someone needs to lend u the vehicle.
Anyways would like to see any designs you come up with, do u stream or upload videos?