Vaeliorin

Sure, and the tower defense is the primary reason I bought the game. I'd been following the game for years, and thought that if they ever added mechanical traps I'd buy it. They did, and I did. I actually hate first person shooters. But I'd like to have to make an effort to set up my killbox, instead of it being basically effortless. I want to be able to try different things without knowing that they'll work. That's the real killer to me, that the AI is so predictable I don't even have to test a base design to know if it will work. As for being able to survive any horde night in a wooden base, I'm not saying that's a base I would or do use, I'm just saying I could build a base to do it (knowing how to avoid rage mode and that there are blocks zombies will try and walk across that they just fall through.) And I'd certainly agree with your last point about a cube not being tower defense.

Sure, but the number of people I've seen talk about spending hundreds of days in a single world probably numbers in the single digits. Most people seem to start over/quit once they've got top tier gear and an unassailable horde base, which doesn't take all that long unless you play very slowly. I too prefer the later days, and I don't expect any sort of MMO style end game (though from what I've read about the new armor sets, it looks like a Diablo-esque end game is going to be a thing.) I just wish there was some sort of challenge to the later part of the game beyond just me fiddling with aesthetics for hours on end.

I had hundreds of hours in A16.4, and I only once had a (final) base that functioned how I wanted (my starter bases all functioned, but they were all basically the same, just something to get me through the first few horde nights.) All the dozens of others failed in some way (not that they were breached as I tend to overbuild things, just that they didn't function how I wanted.) Only once had a base fail after A17, and that was because I wasn't aware they changed the distance that zombies would path, so they all ended up attacking the rear of my base instead of pathing around to the front. The point is, zombie behavior was only exploitable with bases that weren't at ground level in A16.4 (because it was basically just run straight toward you, you could even get them to throw themselves off massive drops. In fact, it was a bit of challenge to keep them from doing so, requiring something to slow them down enough that they'd recalculate their pathing, which took a while). If all they'd done to the AI was make them aware of height/added rage mode if they couldn't reach the player vertically and fixed the spinning in place bug, I think the zombie AI would be much more fun than it currently is. At this point, I'm fairly certain that I could make an all wooden base that could survive basically any horde night, and that makes horde night kinda pointless, in my view.

Yeah, I imagine they were looking for content that would make the game last past day 30 or so (if that long.) The longest I think I've ever gone in a world is around 50 days (admittedly, I play 2 hour days), and the last 36 or so were almost entirely spent gathering resources and building (well, I also spent 4-5 in game days looking for a nice place to build. Found a place on a lake with snowy mountains in the background, it was beautiful.)

I had the opposite experience. In A16 I'd try all different kinds of base designs to see if they work, trying to get the zombies to behave how I wanted. Since A17, I know how they'll work, and they all end up basically the same, funneling the zombies into an intended killzone. Where there problems with the A16 AI? Of course there were. Building a stilt base or an underground base would completely break the zombie AI. I'd have preferred an update that gave them vertical awareness but didn't make them brilliant structural engineers who always go to the weakest point.

I think you have to be in debug mode for it to work

By the by, I've definitely encountered the hop phenomenon before. In my mind it happens when I don't fully depress the space bar, but I've never tested it or anything. Even with maxed parkour it was less than a full unperked jump.

The real limiting factor on how quickly you can jump is how quickly you land. I can't imagine anyone so slow at spamming space that they couldn't immediately jump again after landing.

They've intentionally nerfed the use of axes as weapons. There was a period where they were just as (if not more) effective as the normal melee weapons, and apparently people were foregoing using a normal melee weapon for the axe, since it saved them an inventory slot, and The Fun Pimps didn't like that.

I suppose. I just go through tools at a voracious rate (usually multiple repairs per trip) so I'd basically never have access to the best tools I can make, which I would find pretty frustrating. I'd totally be willing to do it for weapons (maybe not armor...military armor parts are abundant, but steel armor parts are also super rare in my experience) but tools would really bug me.

If you didn't start within viewing distance of the trader most of the time, I might be willing to cancel the find the trader quest, but I'm not giving up my 4 points. That was one of the nice things about A16, you started off in the middle of nowhere and just picked a direction until you found a road (I usually looked for the highest point around) then followed the road until you found a town.

Honestly, it depends when the steam sales are. They seem to be timing releases with the steam sales the last couple of years.

Honestly, given how rare steel tool parts are, I don't know how you can really do no repair. It's usually weeks after I can make max level steel tools before I have enough to make an axe, let alone a shovel (though why would you?), and forget ever making a ratchet. I guess if you use the chainsaw/auger it might not be so bad (those parts seem much more common) but I hate them and never use them except sometimes the auger if I need to remove some concrete/steel blocks I don't want where they are anymore.

I believe there are mods that will reduce it down to just clicking a button (or maybe picking up some stone? I've never used them.) Personally, I appreciate them because I can never find nests or stone on the ground until I don't need it anymore, since I seem to be blind in the early game for some reason.

I gotta admit, I miss LBD. Valmod back in A16.4 had my favorite progression system in the game, where you had learn by doing for basically everything, and as you progressed in skills you unlocked new recipes. I don't recall exactly what effected quality (whether it was a skill or a perk...I think a perk) and it had some issues since you can only get xp from workstations if you've got the workstation open when something finishes crafting. Still, it was my favorite version of 7D2D.

The reason, as I understand it, is because of Microsoft (though I thought they decided not to get rid of the steam mod folder function). The game is on Gamepass and the Microsoft store, and they don't let you alter the files in the game folder, from what I've been told.

Guns, sure. The changes to stamina have made using a melee weapon outside of what you've specced into an exercise in frustration/futility.

It's recipes.xml Anyway, some very basic feedback (only at the very start of Day 2, 2 hours days) is that buckets are perhaps too common. I've looted 2 POIs plus whatever random cars/trash I've come across, and I've already looted 9 or 10 buckets (I started scrapping them, so I'm not entirely certain exactly how many.) Obviously not a large enough sample size to say anything with certainty, but reducing how common buckets are by 50% (or even 80%) would make more sense and be more balanced in my initial impression.

The fact that traders are bugged and don't get new inventory every 3 days like they used to (I'm assuming it's a bug) doesn't help either.

The only real limit on early game water in A21 (at least for me) is the time it takes to cook it. I've never had to drink murky water, and I usually have 10-15 jars at the end of Day 1. Hence my point about how it's not really changed anything. Heck, in my current game I have 18 dew collectors (indoors, because that makes sense...I just wanted them away from zombies) but when I only had a few, I consistently forgot to loot them, but I still had more than enough water. At this point, I've got 250 water stuck in a box, plus another 35 mineral water for drinking. I haven't even crafted any glue yet because I haven't needed it (I've been really lucky looting repair kits this playthrough) and I haven't yet crafted a chemistry station. I don't really see a real need for a lot of glue early game (it's late game that I want it, at which point water is once again trivial.) I just find it slightly annoying because it's a bunch of extra clicks (for looting all the dew collectors) for, as I see it, no real benefit. Like I said, I don't hate the change, I just don't really get it. It's had basically zero effect on my gameplay and so seems somewhat pointless. I used to have games in A16.4 (when ground water was more scarce) where I'd have to go hunting for a water source, and that was much more of an issue than what we have now (or since they added all the water filled culverts everywhere.) Maybe I'm less effected because I've never really bought much at the trader (usually just magazines/schematics and beakers, with maybe the occasional mod or solar cell) so the cost of water filters doesn't really matter to me, but all the water changes in A21 have done is added the annoying repetitive daily task of looting dew collectors.

I kinda thought he was linking it because Fram didn't. Definitely going to try it out on my next new world (already got 9 dew collectors in my current world, so couldn't really give good feedback.)

Look, I really don't care that much about the water change, I mostly think it was pointless (because I still end up with hundreds of jars of water in storage), but I used to be able to go weeks without stepping foot in a POI (I like to build/mine) and now if I want to do that I have to build a field of dew collectors. It's not an issue, maybe a slight annoyance (let me pipe all my dew collectors together to a single collection point, please), but it has without a doubt changed the ways you can play, and not really in a positive way. I'd be fine with making water harder if they'd actually made water harder. I don't care one way or the other about jars. But they've changed from something that wasn't an issue to something that's slightly annoying, and I don't see that as a good change, personally.

I always carry a stack of food and water on me, since I tend to go through ~300 units of food and water every (2 hour) in game day. But yeah, I try and keep topped up, I just have a tendency to get distracted and forget to drink until I start running out of stamina.

The stamina penalties kick in at 75/50/25 percent thirst, if I understand correctly. The problem is that it doesn't tell you there's a problem until you hit 50%, when you've been suffering a penalty since 75%. I always try and stay above 75% thirst, but sometimes I don't notice it's gotten below that so I don't realize until I start running out of stamina.

This is possible (even likely) but I've seen instances where zombies seem to attract other zombies, so you get a larger group of them than you would normally expect from a wandering horde hanging out in one spot.