Bhaaltazar

Truth is what else will they have them sell... basically it is better to just ignore traders alltogether since they break a game - even with resetting POI's and rewards. Than they are selling magazines, crucible, cobblestone etc... Game feels much better without them ( played some I am legend mod that removes traders from the game and I was forced to move around much more since I emptied all the buildings in a town ). Problem is that traders shorten the game significantly. I was hoping they would be better used and evolved, when they announced it back than, but they act as a cheat code at the current state of the game. Unless they add more content, NPCs and more things to do when you reach that day 30+ game gets completely repetitive and stale, no satisfaction with any kind of good endgame play. Also noticed that game ratings on Steam keeps on dropping. Currently close to where the game was at A16 before graphic sugars were introduced.

So if I want to enjoy the game for a bit longer I go out in wilderness ignore Traders/Airdrops/quests/loot respawn and just try to do it like in A16. I move from town to town, loot POIs, no matter which tier it is and than come back to main base every 7 days or so. You really need to limit yourself against mentioned things since they really break the gameplay - despite traders got nerfed you still get rewards and you can buy stuff you need, that makes a huuuge difference from A16 - now tehre is no starving, no hunger, no illnesses anymore - trader has you covered

Moving away from Learn by Doing towards books was big mistake - I think only modders like Subquake who is making Undead legacy will save the game. Checked Steam ratings and they dropped for around 10% compared to before. Now you can sum down the game to collect magazines and go from bookshelf to bookshelf/mailbox/newsstand/bookstore so you collect them all and craft lvl 6 tools/weapons and restart the game since there is nothing else left to do after you reach that point. So if I want to enjoy the game for a bit longer I go out in wilderness ignore Traders/Airdrops/quests/loot respawn and just try to do it like in A16. I move from town to town, loot POIs, no matter which tier it is and than come back to main base every 7 days or so. You really need to limit yourself against mentioned things since they really break the gameplay - despite traders got nerfed you still get rewards and when you buy stuff you need, that makes a huuuge difference from A16 - no starving, no hunger no illnesses anymore. I really wish I could go back to A16 system and keep the new graphics and looks from A22 and hopefully they add some quality engame. Current game lost its mojo compared to what it used to be, even if game looked much worse than now. I love the game, I just don't like the way they want to make it easier for "new players" - sometimes it feels like playing in cheat mode. Also it is like they can't decide if you are the last survivor or there are comunities and if they are where are NPCs besides traders that would enrich the world. Bandits are coming, but I would like survivors faction as well or something along those lines, towards where you turn your focus and efforts with all the T6 equipment you kept collecting with looting and crafting.

Ferals and Rads arent special - you will find them in tier 2 and up, depends on difficulty you are playing on. Those spiders are just an upgraded crawler. Yea I agree specials are Demolition and Mutated that you meet later in game or wasteland. Cops also occur soon, though they do have ranged attack and explode. Oldest and first special zombie in game that you only met in wasteland hub city in old alphas.

There are no "special" zombies anymore - that only used to be a thing in old alphas with rads and spiders crimbing zombies.

Did 3 playthroughs on Warrior dificulty and mostly snow and wasteland biome looting and questing, but had full crate of first aid bandages and bunch of honey, first aids and everything left at dy 42 when I usually get bored and stop playing. Meds has been reduced some, but never run out of meds ( except maybe on day 1 and 2 ). IMO meds should be reduced even more.

Definitely learn by doing and add books and magazines as addition to it. Well they aready had id in place in A16 but they went on and fixed something that wasn't broken. Players pushed against it in A17 "they solved it" with adding even more magazines lol

So I have been with the game since A9 ( little over 7.5k hours in 10 years according to steam ). Game has always been designed that you reach the Mid game ( well at least in my opinion when you max out your gear and you can comfortably defend against hordes that should be end of Mid game and that is the point where you switch to serious end game stuff ). In all these years there has never been any talk about end game, more like let's just stretch the game and slow progression so this is the end game than.( therefore let's remove learn by doing progression and replace it with "comic books" because your character doesn't have any brain left to learn anything by using tools or weapons. But lets leave that aside for now... So according to little bits of information about further updates, it looks like there are 2 factions in game, White River and Duke and do not like each other ( from what I could pick up from Hugh dialog ) and there will also be bandits that will attack everyone. Game is great until this end of the Mid game ( once you reach max T6 levels in progression with gear/quests often times you don't really have a real benefit to use that gear for anything anymore, unless you just want to "challenge" yourself with repetitive T6 quests or running POI's and doing big builds and play with broken farming ( Bring back farming of A16 and before please ). OK game still needs lots of balancing to do, but after A16 I have never bothered to collect brass to make bullets and stuff etc, farming, I mine much much less than before to fill my needs ( In A 16 I used to play usually to around day 70 horde now I stretch it and play at max to around day 42 maybe 49 - everything gets too repetitive after that. ). So what is the end game? - clear the zombie plague ( is that what T6 quests are all about maybe, so you do this infested POIs that take couple in game days to finish so you find some sort of research to find out what they were doing in those labs that maybe caused the plague and look for cure ( Higashi, Dishong tower, army bases research etc... ) - or create a safe heaven for your faction where you build and protect a small town that can thrive and protect your citizens like maybe what you do in State of decay 1 and 2 where you clear the map of all the infestations so plague stops spreading ( though I saw one of staff members said they do not plan to introduce any new NPCs ) Modpacks like Darkness falls go for secret military bunker endgame with military research and portals for plague origins and all the mutations etc... What I worry about 7D2D currently is a great game with great potential which can be ruined with weak ending game mechanic where you don't find much satisfaction when you end the game. Similar to what Game of Thrones last season did to the otherwise great series, quick lackluster rushed endings that hardly made any sense to the ark they built in previous seasons. I do not know what TFP plans to do, but in 10 years there has never been any concrete information about how they plan to bring ark of the game to satisfactory ending and what the real end game goal will be. Or how Pixar explained their big success: Brands that have the most compelling stories win. Please do not take this as a rant ( I would still rate the current game lets say 85 - 90 out of 100, but without proper endgame at full game release that would drop down to probably solid 70 - 75 ). One of the games I replayed the most with friends and solo gameplays, but if there is lame ending after all these years of development than I will say Thank you for fun and many hours, it had a great potential but it wasn't meant to be one of the best after all. So what would your suggestions be for a good end game for 7D2D?

T5 or T6 takes waaay too long ( 7Days suits drove me mad looking for missed zombies for a whole day running around looking for few groups I somehow missed ) to be worth doing it for traders. I did couple off them just for the sake of a resetting of POI so I can scrap them for materials ( book stores for those roles of paper - for shotgun shells crafting, Army outpost 7 for beds and car parts, Grover high for quick library run and quick xp with all the zombies hordes you get...) Lower tier quests gets you quick magazine bundles or duct tapes. Otherwise I only use traders to buy couple of food ( cans and potatoes/corn ), than usually I buy cobblestone to save time, occasionally duct tape and glue, magazines, lamps, Dew collector 1st two mods and Crucible to send me ahead. That is it, all the rest is useless in their menu. Don't even bother with them, just go to the wasteland for higher Loot stage and you get all the items you need much faster for lower tier POI's. Also for skill progression just do mail boxes, newspaper stands and bookstores instead of buying from traders - frankly that is all game is all about now since there is no learn by doing anymore.

I wish! +1 Feels sort of empty sometimes. I liked A16 mechanic where zombies sniffed you outwhen you entered new town and you had to "Clear the streets" first before you looked for loot etc... You get more of them in wasteland but they just keep spawning in out of thing air behind you even after you cleared them.

You can still do quests and turn them in as normal, only difference is after you get a message those quests do not count towards trader tier progression. After midnight counter resets for trader progression counting.

New POI's are made mostly out of few triggers/ambushes where you get big waves of zombies before proceeding to next floor/level. You can use that to your advantage, where you just use choke points ( doorways, spikes, wire traps etc... ) and just kill all the zombies there by using either grenades, or in my case Sniper rifle with perception build, bust best of all shotguns dmg with headshots through holes in damaged doors. Quick and easy even with Rads or ferals. Grover High on snow biome was my quick way to farm for xp/books/loot/salvage. The other T5 POI I like for a quick shotgun run late game is T5 military base US army post #7 I think it's called. Also plenty of zeds with trigger events - which once you get used to it play to your advantage for quick disposal.

Water is abundant, if you loot all the toilets, kitchen appliances, coolers etc.. you will have an extra chest just for water. On day 5 I haven't found a wrench yet, neither I could craft one - lacked mechanical parts for it and Rekt wasn't selling one. I found Stun baton on day 2 which is huge early game leap, so to go through so much work for sledge turret doesn't feel to be worth it. Especially when you can't rotate the sledge direction when you place it down ( like facing you if you in front of the door ).

I get all that, it just seemed like big discrepancy compared to other classes at thit stage. And it is a sledge turret, kinda useless unless you plan for its use, usually you just found a few of these in loot in earlier alphas.

So WTF is with recipes in intellect build? wanted to make me Sledge turret lvl 3 on day 5, but the recipe want me to make 30 duct tape, on top of 120 Forged iron and 30 springs? Doesn't make any sense since Intellect doesnt have mining nor salvage perk? Intellect recipes are exponentialy more expensive than any other classes?