The problem is that then you form an opinion about the general state of the game and when people argue against that opinion you take that as an attack against your right to share your opinion.
Except that's not what happens. It's not a situation where people are debating their opinions. If that's all it was I wouldn't have even engaged here (or in the other thread). It's people expressing their opinion and people dismissing them by using fallacies instead of actually substantively engaging them. The other thread you and I engaged each other was you and others mischaracterizing someone's position. I read the post, understood exactly what he was talking about and what the person found frustrating about the system even though I haven't played pre A18, and then proceeded to read numerous posts where people tried to spin it as "oh you just want a guarantee of x loot by y day!" And when I pointed out that people were not accurately understanding/representing his point you went back and forth with me trying to convince me that somehow the person meant what you said they meant and not what they actually wrote. And when he returned to the thread and started clarifying his position I was right. He explicitly made the point that he was against 'casino loot' and that he didn't want a guaranteed loot by a set game day he just wanted to be able to work towards something and not have progression entirely luck based. It's not significantly different than here aside from the discussion being semantics versus strawman. Even when the person openly acknowledges that crafted versus looting isn't balanced instead of actually engaging on that substantive point about why the system might be the way it is, what they like or dislike about it, or ideas to address their issues with the system people are arguing semantics about the phrase looter shooter. It's silly.
Instead of trying to change the conversation away from your arguments to whether people's opinions are being invalidated or not just stick to your argument and continue the conversation. Trust me. Your opinion is safe and secure here in the forum. Nothing you've posted goes against any rule so it will remain for all to read and either be convinced by it or not depending on what else they read.
If that's your take of my post you've fundamentally misunderstood the point. I'm not worried about any of that at all. My initial response to Bob was in jest. The point wasn't "we're being oppressed, omgz pitchforks!" it was a slightly snarky way of commiserating with him and saying "here we go again" after he made the point:
Suppose I'll stop giving feedback, then. What's the point if I'm just going to get dogpiled for it and nobody cares about it anyway? Back to lurking for me.
In every case I've joined into conversations like this it's because people are making fallacious arguments and I'm trying to empathize with the person getting dismissed, exactly like he was. He was right too. "just mod it, it only takes 2 mins but people would rather complain" isn't actually engaging people. It's handwaving them away and, as Bob pointed out, it's not an honest appraisal of the situation as not everyone is comfortable or knowledgeable enough to go digging around in XML. Personally, I'm not even hating on the devs for implementing this system. I've heard from you (and others) that it was trivial crafting wise before to end up with the best gear quickly and I don't think that's a great outcome either plus we know there are more changes coming. And I'm sure if when we get there the devs don't like the outcome they'll continue iterating until they do. But that doesn't invalidate how people feel about how things are now in A18.
But they don't. What they actually say is that 7 Days to Die can no longer label itself as a crafting survival game because all it is is a looter shooter or something to that effect and they proceed to demand the devs go back to the way things were.
Care to point out where Bob or the OP of this thread said either of those things? Because I'm not seeing it. I mean, I'm sure someone, somewhere made those arguments but you'll need to address that with them. I'm not sure what bearing that has here.
1) The devs will not go back to the way things were: T3 gear will have a component of their recipe that cannot be crafted and the highest quality of gear soon to be know as legendary will never be able to be crafted.2) The game is still firmly a combination of crafting, looting, trading, surviving, building, shooting, sneaking, defending, and assaulting.
3) Within the new system there are things that can be done to strengthen crafting without weakening looting.
1) I mean, we have people here in this thread talking about how schematics were in game, were removed, and then came back because the devs didn't like how the intermediate system worked out. That said, I'd be happy to read over any post the devs made about what the final loot system is intended to be like.
2) Cool, I guess?
3) Hell, I don't even care if progression is loot based as long as it's not entirely luck based. I would much prefer to, as an example, be able to work towards completing the ranger book set on an archer build and actually be able to make progress on it aside from praying that what I want to work on shows up on the trader or spamming tier 5 missions and hitting bookshelves. Or I want to get a crucible without having to use a book to reset points, dump them in int, make a crucible, buy another book and swap back all so I can start crafting steel simply because luck hasn't graced me with one, the schematic, or one doesn't show up on a trader. But that's me. Still, when people like a system and that system changes, even if it's for good reason, it's unrealistic to expect them to not complain/vent/provide critical feedback about it.
They are-- and good suggestions posted in the A18 feedback and balancing thread that do not demand a reversal or accuse the devs of bait and switching the game from crafting to looting but simply state ideas for how to restore balance between crafting and looting within the current system are going to give them great factors to consider.
Again, I'm not seeing either of those things in the OP or in Bob's posts so I have no idea what you're talking about.
I'd love to see a dev write up a short post philosophically waxing about what the long term goal is with the crafting/looting system is. It's obviously a point of contention as we see repeated posts on the forums talking about issues with crafting from people who have played much longer than I have. Clearly the devs have a goal in mind they're working towards and they talk to some folks about it as I've heard bits and pieces from different sources but there's not really any centralized, compiled public source that I've been able to find. If they have done this somewhere and I've just missed it please by all means point me at it. Having something like that might provide some insight and ease the frustrations/concerns of people like the OP who have little context to the changes. I've looked over the A18 dev diary (and the A19 one too) and while that talks about features it doesn't really dig into the how and why of things or where things are going eventually, they seem more like changelogs than anything. When I saw the Dev Diary posts I was expecting something along the lines of this:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-142-sectors.1163477/
That's a game that made some drastic changes that I absolutely did not like but they are so good at explaining what their intent is and why they're making changes so that I understand why they made them even if I wasn't exactly fond of the outcome. Then again I don't know how big TFP are and whether they have the staff to handle communication on that scale or someone who is good at that kind of consistent communication. I know this started out as a kickstarter and it's been in development for more than a few years.
layful: 
