You seem to assume a lot. I am not a min-max person. At least, not in any meaningful way. But even someone who says they aren't (including me) will still do things that are efficient unless they are either too much effort or too boring. Even something basic - using the best weapon or tool that you have instead of the worst - is being more efficient. The common meaning of min-max is more specific than just being efficient, though. And wasn't what I was referring to. The common meaning is to do something like swapping armor based on what you are doing to get the best bonus for the task (mining armor when mining, farming when farming, nerd when reading, etc). And I don't do that, so please don't assume I do. But I specifically said "efficient" and not min-max, because they are different, even if they are related. Most players don't min-max in the way it's commonly meant, but most do things efficiently. For example, do you just keep making burnt meat once you learn to make grilled meat (and have a grill)? I doubt it. Doing so means having to drink more water, which is less efficient.
Weapons you use personally are different. You'll use whatever you like, even if it's less damage or less efficient. But traps (including automatic turrets) that you use are going to be whatever you think works best. If you can wipe out zombies long before they reach your base, you're going to always use a sniper turret unless it is terribly inefficient or ridiculously expensive. You'll still continue to use the other turrets if a sniper turret has slow rate of fire because it won't keep up, even with a lot of them (up to a point), but you'll always use the sniper turret. That won't be an alternative, but something that just gets used every game.
Anyhow, it really doesn't matter. I was just saying that many of these aren't really alternatives if they are more efficient than existing options. Take your workstations, for example. If you have a choice of a less efficient one that only uses wood (or other burnable items) like we have now or a more efficient one that can use electricity like you suggest, players will always use the more efficient one unless they are doing a game without electricity. So it isn't an alternative. It's either a complete replacement (never using the less efficient option) if you get it at the same time, or it's an upgrade (replacing the old with the new) if you get it later. The only reason it would really be different is choosing not to use electricity or only being able to make it after you're far enough into the game that efficiency doesn't matter and you just don't feel like bothering with it.
I won't bother you about it anymore, though. It doesn't really matter if you want to call these things alternatives. I think if many of these were added, practically everyone would use them every game, making them not alternatives. But it doesn't matter what they are called.
As far as ammo usage, you can either choose to stick to 9mm if you want, or you can see that you have an imbalance of ammo and adjust accordingly. I used to always have tons of .44 ammo. I saw that it was just stacking up and no one used it, so I started using the desert vulture instead of the SMG or pistol. Sure, it is lower ammo capacity, but it works really well. And suddenly my 9mm ammo stopped being empty all the time. But that's a choice you have. Use a weapon you don't normally use or don't prefer so that you balance out your ammo usage, or choose to use the weapon you like and deal with ammo usage by crafting more and scrapping or selling the type(s) you don't need. That being said, I've mentioned it a couple times already.... I'm fine with a 7.62 auto turret being added. I just don't think it needs to have very long range. Perhaps a little, but not a lot. If overall damage and distance is roughly similar to SMG, it will not be a replacement, but
will be an alternative because then it's just a matter of preference and ammo usage rather than being a better option. Very long range, with one shot before each reload could do the same thing, but if you start playing too much with the rate of fire, people will end up just thinking it useless and never bother with it. As it is, the shotgun turret is borderline too low rate of fire, imo. I already don't use it much because it's so slow and has such a short range. It's still great at a place where zombies will walk right past it, but so is an SMG. If it was much slower, I think it would become useless to bother with unless you just want to use up shotgun ammo. So going much slower than that with a "sniper" turret may just make them unused by a lot of people. There's a balance you need. Unbalance it and it either becomes a "required" option because it's so good or it becomes a "useless" option because it can't compare. But if it's very similar in damage stats to other options, then it becomes an alternative or addition to your defense that you can choose based mostly just on what ammo you want to get rid of. Of course, if it's similar, you have people who complain that it is too much like what you already have. Hard to win with players.
In the end, you have to understand what I mentioned a long time ago... as console players, you are all just learning the game. Even if you played the old version, the current version is so vastly different that it's essentially a new game with the same theme. Things are just done very differently than they were 5 years ago. New players in any game will think they need to do X, Y, or Z to have fun or be efficient or win or whatever simply because they haven't learned the game well yet. Over time, you will start to see things in a similar way as those who have been playing the current versions of the game for hundreds or thousands of hours. You will find that a lot of the things that you think are difficult or time consuming really aren't. You will find better ways to do things. You will learn what you like most about the game and will focus on that so that the game is fun and not boring. It just takes time. This is why console players seem to have a different view on the game than PC players. Console players now have the exact same game, so it's not because the game is different. And there are plenty of casual PC players and plenty of hardcore console players even if the ratio of the two aren't the same from PC to console, so that isn't the cause of differences in how PC players and console players see the game. The difference is that console players are all new to the current version unless they were playing PC before. And if they were playing PC before, they probably have a different view than the rest of the console players do right now. Give it a few more months (longer for very casual players who don't play often) and once console players start getting up around 300-500 hours or so, you'll most likely start seeing a shift in what they feel is needed or unnecessary.
To touch on the end game stuff... yes, it doesn't have much end game stuff. TFP is adding a story that is intended to add more to the end game. However, I would not expect that story to really improve end game that much. A story is something that takes place throughout a game and not just end game, so you'll be done with the story by the time you're at end game. Bandits will also be there throughout the game, so again are not really doing much for end game. The simple matter is that this game is not a game designed to get to the end and just keep playing over and over to max out stats or whatever like many other games. It is instead a game designed to allow maximum replayability so that you will keep starting new games once you reach what you feel is the "end" of the game. That is a very different design than most games out there and so you will see a difference in end game content. The idea is not to just play forever in one game but to play many shorter games. And you can tell by the gameplay stats on Steam that this game has enough replayability that people are putting in more hours in this game than just about any other game that isn't a service game (like an MMO) that keeps adding a lot of end game content all the time to keep expanding the game. But it does require a different way of playing the game. If you're focused entirely on end game, you're going to quickly get tired of the game. If you're focused instead on just playing the game, you'll get more out of it.
For me, I find base building, horde nights, and zombie killing to be the best parts of the game. I tend to prefer the late game because I then have plenty of resources to build whatever I want. I have plenty of power to mow through tons of zombies. I have vehicles that let me move around the map and kill stuff in a wider variety of POI quickly instead of wasting most my time running around. None of that requires any additional end game content to be enjoyable. That doesn't mean more content isn't nice, of course. But if they go too far with stuff, they can actually ruin the game. As it is, bandits seem like a 50/50 idea to me. They might be good for the game, or they might ruin the game. I play the game for the zombies. There are better games if you want to just go after bandits or other living enemies. But we'll see. It could be good and I'm hoping it is good. And if it isn't, I hope there's a way to disable them.
