adaemus

I've been playing 7D2D for years (1030.1 hours so far) and typically with the same group of friends. My friends have always been the looting/salvaging/questing types of players and for them they LOVE A21. The fact that you progress by looting and reading magazines fits right into their gameplay loop and they are really enjoying the new system. I've always been the builder though. I create our bases, our mines, our vehicles, our farm, our blood moon night bases, etc. My gameplay loop has been harvesting raw material and building. A21 has well, destroyed my gameplay loop. Sure, I can go cut down a tree with a level 1 stone axe or dig a mine with a level 1 stone shovel but gee, that gets a little old when I'm a game week into the game and I'm still using that same level 1 stone axe/shovel. Want to progress to iron tools...need magazines. Want to make higher tier tools...need magazines. Want to create a new type of item....need magazines. My friends can bring back magazines and other equipment but the way the game works now the magazines they find are tilted towards what they have put points into and not into the magazines that I need to be a builder. Now I'm forced to join them on POI raids but even this is screwed up. To get a better chance for magazines to drop that I care about I have to loot the item. But there are 3-4 of us in the POI and my friends aren't just going to let me loot everything, nor would I want them to, because they want their magazines as well so they also need to loot stuff so the odds are in their favor to get their magazines to drop. This dynamic pretty much leads to breaking the friends apart to loot different POIs but now you took away the fun of playing with your friends!! So, yes...I could continue my old gameplay loop but be nearly fully reliant on my friends to bring me stuff but as a builder I have always been self-reliant. Basically the only thing I could not do before was create a beaker or other occasional things. I went from being 5% reliant on my friends to enjoy my gameplay loop to being 95% reliant on my friends. A21 is just not fun due to the new magazine mechanic. My friends love it though...