The problem with book gates is that it completely removes major portions of the game that everyone should see and experience if they want. I played long games where I didn't get a minibike book and it was frustrating. The new perk system solves that and so many other problems with progression. You are gated by stuff in every game. Either a level you can't beat, or some money to buy an upgrade to your race car, bullets needed to shoot stuff, some action needed to perform.
Ark is level gated because you need to gain levels to buy engrams. Skyrim and fallout two of the best selling franchises of all times are level gated. Do you think the 1 billion players hated that?
The reason we put in level gates was because teams of guys were hitting INT 10 by day 3. Its an edge case, but generally speaking stuff you have to wait for is more appreciated. I don't think the wait is long, I got my forge on day 5, bicycle on day 8, minibike on day 13. Thats less than 13 hours. Not a big deal when your having fun.
I'm sorry for repeating myself Madmole but as long as shared team xp creates 80% bonus xp out of thin air, (and that's in a 2 player team, probably even more in a larger team) you will always have this situation.
1 player can go full INT while all the others go full STR for faster zombie killing. Clear POI's together or set the xp share distance to 10k and you will always have teams hitting 10 INT on day 2-3-4 and then craft iron tools and minibikes for the whole team.
Gating perks won't solve this without punishing SP, unless you have lower gates on SP.
As a mostly solo player I NEVER hit INT10 on day 3, let alone day 14 or 21. I probably could by day 7 by POI grinding but then I have to sacrifice too many useful perks and it's incredibly boring so it's not worth it imho.
I have to be much more careful with where I put my points because I have no team members to rely on to craft things for me.
INT is still an important stat for me, but I have to spread my points out a lot more if I want to be a jack of all trades and be mostly self sufficient.
I'm on day 23 and just hit level 70 after focussing on POI grinding since day 18-19. I finally made myself a full set of steel tools and a motorcycle. I couldn't do my motorcycle at level 50 because I got unlucky and the trader didn't sell any steel.
I'm at INT8 with nerdy glasses so I'm crafting tier 6 items and have most of my other attributes up to 5 with various useful perks up to 3. (mining, stamina, farming, healing, stun resistance, ...)
This feels very close to a balanced way to play the game. Doing this in MP would have drastically changed this experience.
Teams will ALWAYS have an advantage over a solo player. You can never truly balance that. It's a fact of life.
But shared xp creating 80+% bonus xp out of thin air is now stacking on top of the advantage you already get for being in a team.
Keep in mind though, changing shared xp to only create a 5-10% bonus or no bonus at all will still let teams hit INT10 before night 7.
That's the advantage of playing in a team in most games. You can clear more content faster and safer (in this case killing zombies to level up).
It's up to you guys to find the balance between MP and SP without punishing one too much (most likely SP in this case).
You'll most likely end up with either a loose(SP)/win(MP) or a win(SP)/bigger win(MP) situation. I'm hoping for the second result, even if it means accepting that MP will have an advantage over SP. But that's ok as long as SP doesn't feel like it's being punished for MP balance purposes.
A lot of people on the forum have been giving A17 a lot of flak but change is always difficult.
I'm happy with A17. It still needs a lot of polish and it's far from being the final result of the game but that's ok. It's an alpha after all. People seem to forget that quite often.
I remember a time when video games had no early access or even alpha's/beta's. And gamers didn't have any say in the growth or development of a game.
Gamers are so spoiled these days and then they still complain about everything. Don't let that negativity get you down. Keep up the good work!
Happy holidays!