Absolute willpower and self control is what most of us would wish we had. But anyway, that specific person learned his mistake in this game, however he is not great at gauging how his long-term experience will play out. Instant gratification is always that much more seductive. There are games which succeeded doing exactly that - Dark Souls is an extreme example of a packaged experience that doesn't even give the player difficulty options. Of course, what I am saying is far from extreme and it definitely doesn't apply to this game to that extend.
I'm still curious as to the details of this story. How many games did your friend play over how long of a time period? Why didn't he try again with reduced settings? I will play default in my first game of a new build release, but I will gradually seek harder settings over time to increase the fun factor. (By hard, I mean the actual definition of "hard", which means difficult combat and tacticswise, and not merely time-consuming or boring)
If nothing else, your friend would be better served sticking with packaged experiences, and avoiding sandboxes. Those players tend to want to "take the sand out of the sandbox", and their suggestions match this preference.
Yes but anyone can call any mechanic that takes effort and gates materials behind scavenging or loot tables a "grind". Personally, I enjoy the process of scavenging and upgrading through the tiers of tools, crafting etc, that progressively make it easier to survive, acquire materials and face enemies (not saying it's perfect, by any means). It is the essense of a survival game. From what I gather, you prefer to play the game as a sandbox/building game but you have to understand not everyone plays the game like that exclusively.
Honestly speaking, why even subject yourself to what you call a boring grind and not get the materials you need to build from debug mode? That way the process, being longer or shorter wouldn't even affect you. Don't get me wrong. I am a player who both enjoys the "progression" part of the game and building/sandbox. If I didn't enjoy the first part, I would definitely skip it.
Because I enjoy progression in general. My issue is with how many gates are now in the way of this process and how much time it wastes. I found the sweet spot to be around A10; it was possible to play however you wanted and still get endgame materials within a reasonable amount of time. A14 started the gradual process of lengthening the early game's duration, culminating in A16's now-infamous level gates. This has the effect of forcing a specific playstyle in order to avoid having to face the Day 14 or 21 horde with a midtier bow. (Which is doable, but results in a lot more clicking and maneuvering that it should. I enjoy the gunplay against max sized hordes late in the game a lot more)
As of A16 release I mod out the level gates, and the progression curve is still plenty intact. I don't see any reason why good tools should be gated behind materials, skill level,
and player level; yes, the traders are another way to potentially get good tools early, but they are far apart pre-minibike and their stock is random. Relying on RNG is a poor progression mechanic; reminds me of the day they added that awful forge book. It's really just a way to drag out the game's early phases. I do like how they changed the process of creating concrete; that is the kind of gating that I find useful and meaningful.
Essentially, 7DTD offers a unique mixture of RPG, FPS, and sandbox survival in a full voxel world; this specific combination isn't matched by anything else on the market. This is what TFP should be focused on delivering. This is especially important when you consider that there are RPGs that do RPG better (Path of Exile, Skyrim), FPS that do FPS better (Dying Light, L4D, ARK: Survival Evolved), sandbox that does sandbox better (Minecraft, earlier builds of 7DTD), and survival that does survival better (The Long Dark, The Forest). This is why 7DTD should stay true to its roots instead of going a singular path; if it makes this mistake, 7DTD will compare unfavorably to games that do a specific genre better.
Again, that was a reply to Red's post, no worries. But if I could be offended or stressed out by the things you said I would have to visit a doctor to resolve other issues

(and forgive me if I gave that impression)
I did notice that it was not to me, but I wondered all the same. I'm glad for the clarification, and hope that you had a Happy Easter holiday if that is something you celebrate in your resident country.
Essential npcs was one of the worst things that happened to TES. God, that series has gotten so streamlined it's disgusting. That change only pigeonholed gameplay. Even if it was supposedly a change to safeguard players against "messing up", I disagree it applies here because it actually took away player freedom in-game. Choosing if mods are to be removable or not does not - it lets players decide on a game mechanic. Something in the lines of an option to "be a member of every guild from the start", "costless spell creation" or "quests completed automatically" would be a better comparison.
Skipping or removing options does take away player freedom. That's why I suggested that we in fact need more and more detailed options, not fewer. Imagine:
- Being able to choose the hunger/thirst decay rate
- Being able to control how fast or slow the zombies spawn, in what numbers, and how far from the player character
- Being able to adjust the percentage of cities, surburbia, and rural POIs in your RWG without having to alter the XML
- Being able to disable enemy types that you don't find immersive or fun to play against (the dogs are probably the most-complained about going from past forum posts)
- Being able to alter elements of the UI; increase/decrease size, hide parts that you don't want to see. Then maybe we can finally stop having to mod the food and water bars back in every build.
- Being able to have brass mineable/drop more frequently in the world.
I understand that this is not practical for Alpha. But as the game draws closer and closer to release, this is something TFP really should consider if they want 7DTD to have the staying power we're all hoping for.