Its true that i dont watch your videos anymore, the style has changed over the years and that put me off (used to view you as just a knowladgeable player teaching the game, more recently its stuff like screamig 'HYYYYPE' at the start of videos... sorry but im not the target audiance for that.
Not saying dont do this anymore, if its what works for you thats great, its just... more somthing my younger family members would watch than somthing i would.
I got the same feeling. I am happy that Kage and the wife love the changes to A17, especially for them in MP those changes are very helpful.
But for me as a viewer the gameplay has gotten boring fast. Most i quickly skip into... Its always Find Traders, location near trader, shotgun messiah, some other POI ( with constantly running in and out because that is how A17 now plays like )...
Most of Kage his base building feels uninspired these days, what comes down mostly to the AI just wrecking big bases on single points. So, you see in his base designs that same simplicity to deal with the AI. And more boring is the fact that the tends to use two bases ( bloodmoon base and real base ).
I said it before, the game needs to learn to target the real player base, not where the player is! So defending has more meaning and is more difficult. Its way easier to defend a few 3*3 towers with spikes all around then a large house with spikes ( more resource intensive etc ).
So you didn't abuse the trader in this most recent alpha: the question still stands, are they a good game mechanic on thier own or is progression skips (eg getting steel before you can make it) the *only* reason you like the traders?
-Edit: kage answered this above
As far as other games go, been gald to see you branching out over the last few years, i wont watch mist or rust or ark or whatever else because the games themseleves dont appeal to me, but if its helping your channel grow thats great.
The reason he did not abuse the trader in one of the sessions was simply because he had RNG luck in the loot.
Now, its hard to keep track of whatever Kage is doing anymore because at some moment he is doing like 3 game plays. So for me as viewer, its confusing, especially when you also had several restarts with the A17E builds.
And maybe its just me not liking A17, that it makes Kage his videos extra boring these days. The MP with the wife is more funny because you have the interaction but the extra hands also make it less challenging. Especially with the whole group reward questing they do.
That statement from Kage that 7D2D is the survival game, sorry but that is long past. There are better survival games out there now. Some where food and water actually matters. Sure, a lot are not finished / have less time on the development cycle then 7D2D ( people keep forgetting that 7D2D is already 5 years out! ) but a lot of those games have a better grasp in their design / goals then 7D2D.
7D2D with mods, now yes, that is true survival. And those game sessions tend to be more interesting.