I've played this since fairly early on but this is the first time I've ever posted anything mostly because it becomes a pointless childish argument most of the time.
I read quite a few of these posts and I have to say I agree with most of the points raised to a certain extent. Now I have adapted my play style for A17 and I'm level 13, died just the once, have a deep underground base have invested in stealth and I have a forge in a nearby house so I finally made a pot. Do I like the direction the game has gone, no not really but I can adapt if I choose to.
If this is the type of game they want then so be it. I for one have never had a game where I got so much from paying so little.
I've actually have been a programmer for almost 30 years and I couldn't write this game, I do mostly HPC and highly scalable systems work but I could optimise the heck out of the backend or memory usage. But I wouldn't know where to start when it came to the graphics. Whilst Unity is just another engine that does all of the boilerplate for you, it's a lot of work and a lot to learn, just like my job can be and whilst I could learn it, I also have to earn a living. So the developer comparisons are kind of pointless as they wouldn't be able to do my job either without significantly upskilling.
As for individual issues, to me it's the whole dumbing down I don't like. You can use a tool to death and repair infinitely and gone is the decrease in efficiency and the quality they added in an earlier version. That's just a math calculation, I don't see why it had to go. Gone is the weapon part quality and now you have generic weapons at each level you mod, why couldn't they have a mix of both? The tool quality range can be whatever you want it to be. It's like constraining one part of the system has led them to do the same for everything because they made it so generic and everything now has to have the same mechanics. Removal of scrapping bullets to pick what item you want from the scrapping. They now have named weapons with different attributes but it's really just a name value lookup that's pretty trivial and that also could have been applied to the previous system, it probably just needed some simple refactoring.
All of those things can be made generic without sacrificing those features, you just apply different extended rules for each new aspect of gameplay. You already have what an item breaks down into unless that is now always mech parts (not tested enough to be sure). Seems just so simplified now that it's taken away the complexity I enjoyed. It's like, hey focus on this cool new trap or mod, we've taken away the complexity to get there in the first place. Instead of lets build a weapon, lets improve the individual parts an now lets add a mod. It's like all weapons are now basic weapons that can be modded instead of also having complex weapons that can be modded. You can add complexity without making it a development maintenance nightmare. Good design and good units tests! Just inject in different behaviour from a factory.
Some argued it was too complex and a grind but now it's a pure grind. You can only level up by killing zombies or animals, XPs are too low on anything else. Granted base upgrades have some XP but not as much as killing. And if that's the kind of game they want then I can live with that however, not so long ago (a week or two) we were told it wasn't the kind of game where you just kill whatever comes your way. So why turn it into that? because you can't progress otherwise.
Over a year in and we have a prettier version with lots of gameplay mechanics removed and bugs reintroduced that had long since been quashed. At work, I under promise and over deliver. This is completely the opposite and it will always lead to unhappy customers. It's the reworking everything approach that has led to it a taking this long and b it disappointing so many. Adding the new features and graphics on top of a refactored existing system imo would have been much quicker and more rewarding gameplay wise. Of course, I don't know how bad the previous code was but I still think I could have refactored in place and then some.
At the end of the day, as customers, we can choose to adapt to A17 or we can play something else. We all have different opinions and views, mine no more correct than anyone else's and I wont argue with anyone over something that in the grand scheme of things doesn't affect my life.
BUT!, I can't help but wonder what this could have been!.
