It severely limits player choice. Do anything fun get xp, buy what you want with that xp, not be locked into repetitive grindy actions that force you to do stupid things like get stabbed to improve your armor ability.
Oh yeah! We all know how absolutely limiting Skyrim, Oblivion or Morrowind were.
You are what you like.
Like building and mining? Be a builder and miner. The better you build the less defending you have to do on hordenight
Like going in swinging? Level blunt/sharp weapons and armor. The better you are the less defenses you have to build.
Like looting and bartering found items? Level that. You can buy building materials and good weapons.
This was great gamedesign. Do what you love and get good at it while other skills are lacking.
Yes hitting stone for 5000 times isn't all that much fun, but this is why its a survival builder and not a creative builder.
Same as with the stoneaxe and the gunsafe. You don't have to do it day 1.
And you know what A16 brought? XP to level what you absolutely hated. So if you absolutely hated mining, you could do other stuff and then simply put your points into mining.
Now its just "do whatever and skill whatever". Its worse gamedesign, more repetative because you go the same path every game anyways because certain perks are simply more effective than others, or at least every player feels like some are more effective for them.
I will give you my story so you understand why A17 is boring for me:
A17:
*start game*
*level up a bit by throwing molotovs*
*level important perks like packmule stamina and fortitude*
*build a bit*
*level up more so I can finally get better equipment*
*level up more so that traders give me more rewards*
*level up to...*
*start a new game because this one got boring so very fast and do the exact same thing*
A16 game 1:
*start game*
*find a sledgehammer day 1*
*go in the city and sledge every zombie to death, looting while im at it and selling the stuff i found*
*buy me a better pickaxe in the first 3 days from that money*
*have stone and iron and start smelting and have ressources early on*
*build my own shelter*
*once my shelter is better go explore more and find weaponparts*
*endless exploring leveling ranged weapons*
A16 game 2:
*start game*
*don't find anything major in the first 7 days*
*play mostly with a bow trying to find a poi for me to use and reinforce*
*have no good tools therefor only wood collecting and putting loads of spikes around the poi*
*get overrun on day 7*
*move house and find a small town and clear it*
*finally have iron tools and start setting up permanent base in a great POI*
*start digging a killmote because I still dont have any good weapons*
*level up mining very high*
*after day 28 horde find everything for a minibike and can head out and explore bigger towns*
*continue game*
A16 game 3:
*start game*
*start in winter biome*
*run miles until I'm in a nice biome, finding some gasbarrels and a chainsaw before day 5*
*have incredible amounts of wood , making myself a wooden fortress with loads of spikes upgraded and can go exploring because I know zombies wont be able to break it until 3rd hordenight*
*find good loot because I found a big city on my way here*
*find a rifle early and start investing points into rifle perks and building rifle ammo*
*build myself a snipertower in my base complete with lights so that I see the zombies*
*continue game*
If you honestly cant see the difference, you are blinded by your goal of the game.
I'm not saying that A17 can'T be a good foundation for the game you want to make.
But LBD is the far superior system and everyone who says differently is wrong. (Not saying that if they enjoy it they are wrong. Enjoyment is subjective. Possibilities and enabling of playstyles is objective.) It wasn't perfect. It had big flaws and maybe A18+ will be better than A16. But the basic IDEA of LBD is superior to a basic leveling system.
I know the game can't cater to everyone.
