Only speaking for myself here, and only in my single player game, but:
I've next to no need to travel anywhere anymore, find fighting zombies easy but tedious, don't bother with quests, never visit the trader, have no interest in vehicles, and find base building pointless.
I guess I will have to travel when I'm through using all of the vanilla poi's as horde bases, but by then I will have bought all of the perks and be able to one shot everybody anyway.
In a16, I was traveling a great deal, looking for parts to build my defenses, being excited about finding quality parts, having a real reason to kill zombies, and planning my activities based on horde nights.
Of course there were things wrong with a16, but I expected a17 to fix them and add content, not replace them with new problems, adding very little new content in some areas while taking away a great deal of content in other areas.
A17 is boring, once you get past the initial excitement of "oh hey look something new to play."
On my server game, where level gates have been removed, and people can now play how they want, a lot of those flaws still exist.
I have not yet found the magic sauce in modding to make a17 fun. Is it more moddable? In many ways yes, but many key things that used to work to mod, no longer do.
I'm very much looking forward to more a17 updates. I hope they add new content and not just balance changes.
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And I should clarify, I am NOT a neo-anarchist...
So in your world, there is a spoon?