As Roland has pointed out, it was a poll on these forums, a subset of the users on these forums that bothered to respond to the poll, which is itself a subset of all owners of the game (the poll didn't get two and a half million responses after all).
When LBD was there to be argued, I was happy to argue for it, but, on the basis of my own personal preferences, not some imagined (accurate or not is moot) majority stance.
Now that LBD is gone, and seems never to come back, well, I have to accept I've lost the argument and it's time to move on.
Well yes, any poll is done on a subset of a population, from which a subset replies etc. And there is a chance that it might not even be accurate but it is something over nothing (nothing being random speculations), so it's not exactly imaginary. But ok, the majority argument is more of an empty argument because the majority might as well be full of bs.
As for moving on, from my experience, what is not really popular dies out eventually. At any case there is no harm in discussing about it in the proper sections. Imagine if the same was said for the "underground safety" debate over the years (yes MM had expressed a vague intention to do something about it but there were no news for a long time). Who knows, perhaps someday in the future TFP decide to add some LBD elements, perhaps not.
It is equally annoying to those if us that have made that statement have the LBD crowd take this as some sort of narrow and literal statement about why they did not like LBD. That statement is an example of the real problem with LBD - to level a stat you MUST do a set of activities that most of which will not be fun. It is not a matter of hugging cacti that is the problem, the problem is that I MUST get hit to progress my character. That is counter productive and not fun. There is NO WAY to level most skills in a fun manner.
Well if the one who wrote this doesn't like it to be taken literally, then perhaps they could try being literal.
Seriously though, the hugging cacti example is an example of using a static controllable damage source which doesn't provide any risk to level up a skill. If it's in some way metaphorical, what are you trying to compare it with? Being hit by a zombie which can infect you, make you bleed and stun you, especially with the current system of lowered max health?
And how is the example of raising your skill by shooting rocks with a shotgun metaphorical or refers to something broader? If raising your skill was possible only by shooting zombies, how would that be different from what we have now? On the contrary, players would rarely waste bullets on a default setting to just raise a weapon skill, but you can see how lucrative that is with the common pool XP being as valuable as it is.
My point is that if some stupid LBD oversights didn't exist, those repeating, dull, grindy activities would not be possible or beneficial to the player. So the player would just play the game instead of trying to raise some skill in a boring annoying way. And there were still some points you could invest yourself wherever you wanted.
Common XP pool combined with gated perk recipes was the main reason a lot of people viewed A17 as a grind. I am not saying that it can't be salvaged - it can, like the LBD could. But they have to, imo, balance activity XP gain strictly by time spent. For example - zombies are always, infinitely, everywhere, readily available - they cost minimum time. Mining XP also shouldn't scale with block damage. And so on.
What do you do when you are a master user of one weapon but want to very your gameplay and try out some new methods? LBD - your screwed - you are not going to make up for the last 100 hours beating on ♥♥♥♥ with another weapon. Common pool xp - that play option is now open to you.
Nothing stops you from trying out different weapons. You are only screwed if you want to be a master of the other weapon right away. You are free to use the other weapon as you see fit and master it in the process.
Whatever you may think about LBD, MM is flatly correct in stating that it is limiting.
In some sense, your character not being able to shoot lazers out of their eyes is limiting too, but in a good way. What I am trying to say is that this kind of limitation, like the example of not being able to master a weapon without using it, is actually enjoyable to some people.
Most of the current complaints about the current leveling system are based around balance. The problem right now is not common pool - it is that zed farming is to efficient on the early game and mining is to efficient in the late game. That is why I actually prefer Rolland's method as players are freed up from ANY motivation around XP other than the core aspect - survival.
Of course, I never said "this system is doomed beyond redemption, it sucks, bring LBD back". Was always discussing even before A17 was released, about having to balance xp sources, making rpg elements complimentary instead of "a goal" with actions having to depend on survival needs and said the exact thing you say about zombies and mining over 100 times. So I am looking forward to this too. Would be great if MM expressed the same sentiment, but from his recent posts I haven't seen any intention of him doing that. Edit: To clarify he did say that they will balance XP sources more in A18 but he also said
this about the zombies, so I am not really sure what they are going to do.
PS: I like tRolands concept too.