It is so interesting to hear THE LOOTERS howling right now about their game being ruined and acting as though this is it for the game. It was just last alpha right after A18 went stable that we had to read THE CRAFTERS howling about how their game was ruined because the game was all about looting now and obviously the devs hated players who like crafting. This is the characteristic of balancing. The pendulum swings back and forth and the devs fine tune over time. This version we have right now is temporary. Things will settle into a nice groove that will be good for looters and for crafters-- or at least that's the plan. Crafters are happier now because they are crafting their own weapons because there is time to do so before you find one better than you can craft anyway. But they were mad before.
I'm one of those people who were discussing the state of crafting in A18 and didn't like it. I surely weren't mad, I just shared my opinion and in general I don't get why critique in online forums always gets labeled as crying, howling, being mad or whatever. Yes, some people have a pretty aggressive tone, but most people don't. However that's not what I want to talk about, I just had to mention it, since you make it look like no matter what TFP does, people will hunt them with their pitchforks and that's just not how it is. At least for most people.
Going for my actual point: When we were discussing the state of crafting in A18 I always had the feeling you didn't really get my point. Now with what you said here, I'm even more conviced that you didn't understand me. I don't want to get into a lengthy discussion again, but I feel very misrepresented by your paragraph and want to clarify my take on it:
Just because I want crafting to be part of the game, doesn't mean I want looting to be of no or less importance. On the contrary, I want looting to be more important than crafting. Looting should be more powerful on any weapon, tool and clothing you are not specialised in. Looting should also play a role for crafting, so you can't just stay in your base day in day out and have the best gear after some time without seeing a zombie once.
What I don't want is looting being as overpowered in terms of early progression as it was in A18. TFP changed that with the new progression system and while many people don't like that and I as well see flaws in it (I'd rather fix them than going back), it got rid of that problem.
I also don't want crafting to lose it's competitiveness in the end game, but as you and madmole stated, it will stay that way, since madmole want at least one higher quality level for looting than crafting.
Before going for my third point I'd like to combine those two points into I'd love to see crafting being competitive from the first to the last day on the slots you are specialised in (maybe a tiny bit stronger in early and mid game for rpg purposes) and looting being stronger on any other slot.
My third point is, as I mentioned before, that I actually want looting to be part of the crafting process of higher tiers, so you can't craft everything from the safety of your base. That part was already done in A18 with the weapon parts. Those weapon parts already prevent players from spam crafting and thus I fail to understand why crafting has to have a lower quality level than looting. You could easily balance crafting versus looting by changing the amount of weapon parts needed and thus allow crafting to be on par.
The game already had two ways of balancing crafting. The first one is limiting you to those slots you are specialised on and the second is limiting the amount of crafts you can do. I don't understand why crafting on top of that has to have a lower quality level in endgame. That part didn't change (as far as I know, I didn't reach endgame in A19 yet). So the most important part of my critique still stands. Therefor I don't feel "happier now" as you stated. I still think the planned system where crafting falls behind looting in endgame is a bad design. I also still don't craft in early and mid game, since I did find stone tools of the same quality as I could craft, iron tools are not well balanced and I don't have enough tool parts for steel tools (since you can't craft lower qualities than the max you learned).
But I have to correct myself a bit. I feel happier now, just not as a crafter. Crafting (tools, weapons, clothing) still is in a bad spot imho and the direction it's heading for still doesn't make sense to me. I'm still happier overall, since a slower progression is something I wanted as well. The current design has it flaws, as is already discussed in this and other threads, but it's still a step forward for me. I really hated the fast progression we had before.
tl,dr: I don't really see the pendulum analogy working here. As a "crafter" (not that I would label myself that way, but I was discussing in favor of crafting) I didn't feel overly happy in A17, weren't completely happy in A18 and am not excited in A19. I like all three alphas and always felt like the game made more steps forward than backward. I just feel like the game already has all the tools to make crafting and looting interesting and not only coexist, but even complete each other and still the long term goal is to make crafting (tools, weapons, clothing) subpar in the endgame, which I just don't understand at all. And since it's a long term goal, it's not bound to any alpha, so changes between alphas probably won't change what I think about that goal and thus won't make me more or less happy regarding that goal.
