Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Jost Amman]

3 hours ago, meilodasreh said:

...and what does that say about you and your work as a member of the dev team anyway? 😀

That he's so busy actually developing the game that he doesn't have time to come up with a proper horde base? 

[Slingblade2040]

Will there be a focus on food next alpha? Along with a possible nerf to the amount of ammo in those infestation quests? 

 

This whole alpha seems to have made crafting rather pointless aside from the occasional mod or making some crafting stations. Armor is almost always gotten through loot or purchased at a trader, same for tools and weapons, the trap bundles have made it pointless to craft the turrets. Same can also be said for the food bundles, the vending machines having so much food,drink and buff items that it's made crafting them pointless. 

 

Infestations loot crates and loot in general have made ammo crafting almost nonexistent.  

 

Mind you this is all SP world problems that I feel will just keep making SP a looter shooter and making crafting and survival a thing of the past.  Balancing both SP and MP isn't working out

 

And because some folks have the silly notion of oh don't use traders or just mod it as the end all solution that that isn't a viable solution that's literally doing a challenge mode or changing up vanilla into something different. If not using traders was an actual option we should be able to disable them like we do with air drops and blood moons.

[Riamus]

16 minutes ago, Slingblade2040 said:

Will there be a focus on food next alpha? Along with a possible nerf to the amount of ammo in those infestation quests? 

 

This whole alpha seems to have made crafting rather pointless aside from the occasional mod or making some crafting stations. Armor is almost always gotten through loot or purchased at a trader, same for tools and weapons, the trap bundles have made it pointless to craft the turrets. Same can also be said for the food bundles, the vending machines having so much food,drink and buff items that it's made crafting them pointless. 

 

Infestations loot crates and loot in general have made ammo crafting almost nonexistent.  

 

Mind you this is all SP world problems that I feel will just keep making SP a looter shooter and making crafting and survival a thing of the past.  Balancing both SP and MP isn't working out

 

And because some folks have the silly notion of oh don't use traders or just mod it as the end all solution that that isn't a viable solution that's literally doing a challenge mode or changing up vanilla into something different. If not using traders was an actual option we should be able to disable them like we do with air drops and blood moons.

Considering they removed wolves and bears from the forest and stated it was the beginning of balancing, I'd assume that means food will get balanced better in A22.  But that's just my assumption.

 

I craft more in A21 than A20.  However, the issue is that the crafting costs were changed and it's those changes that make crafting certain things not worth bothering with.  The main issue for me is that everything requires tons of duct tape for some reason.  It becomes a matter of whether or not you want to make that much duct tape to craft stuff or if you want to just loot or buy the stuff.  After the lower tier crafting, I find myself not wanting to bother crafting stuff even if I can afford to make the necessary duct tape.  If the crafting costs had remained the same as A20, I'd be crafting most things and at more quality levels except when I find something better first.

 

As far as finding something better in loot or at the trader... well, that's always an option.  They don't want to force players to only craft.  There needs to be an option to get what you need from multiple sources, which is what we have.  If you want to use traders to buy everything, put points into Daring Adventurer and you'll pretty much always find better stuff to buy than you can loot or craft.  If you want to get more from looting, put points into Lucky Looter and potentially wear the glasses that increase it as well or loot in higher biomes.  If you want to craft to get most things, don't put points into those and use the points for other perks and you'll usually be able to craft things relatively equal to what you can find or buy.  That balance isn't perfect because there's no good way to balance based on number of players and so you will find a different amount of magazines in single player than on an 8 player game and it will vary between those numbers.  Still, you have the option to craft if you prefer that.

 

Traders are intended to be used and will likely be incorporated into the faction system (I'm guessing) once that's ready.  They are going to feel OP to people who use them extensively but that's isn't required.  I'm not suggesting not using traders.  But the way I play is that I'll use traders to quest and will buy things occasionally from them if I really want or need something or it can't be looted or crafted (e.g. solar) but it isn't common for me to buy things from them.  It isn't that I'm trying to make things difficult.  I just don't see any reason to buy things as I know I'll find them without having to pay anything for them.  I just save money for things I can't loot.  I wouldn't consider that way of using traders to be unusual or "silly" and is probably how a LOT of people use them.

 

The difficulty for some is that they can only do things in the "most efficient" way and so if they can buy something to have it sooner, they will do so.  And then are upset that they could get it so easily.  I always say that if you don't enjoy something because of how you're doing it, just do it differently and in a way you do enjoy.  If you don't like buying stuff from traders because it's too easy, then don't buy things from traders or at least reduce what you buy.  It may not be the "most efficient" option but if you aren't enjoying it, then you have the choice to not do it.  No one forces you to play the game in a way you don't enjoy other than yourself.  I usually get a response back that they can't help but play efficiently, though that is really a choice they make even if they don't see it that way.

[Eduho]

 Buenas , gracias por el trabajo que estais haciendo , sois sorprendentes .. Tengo una duda , en mi base y en 27 dias , dentro de mi base reaparecen zombies , dos veces en ese espacio de tiempo . es un error ?, se supone que en tu base no han de aparecer ... Por lo demas todo esta fantasticamente bien , el juego es como lo juegas , hay de todo si buscas bien , y desde luego , sino te organizas pasas necesidades.

 

Muchas quejas estoy leyendo para estar en un apocalipsis. ya si eso quitais bichos 🙂

 

[hiemfire]

10 minutes ago, Eduho said:

 Buenas , gracias por el trabajo que estais haciendo , sois sorprendentes .. Tengo una duda , en mi base y en 27 dias , dentro de mi base reaparecen zombies , dos veces en ese espacio de tiempo . es un error ?, se supone que en tu base no han de aparecer ... Por lo demas todo esta fantasticamente bien , el juego es como lo juegas , hay de todo si buscas bien , y desde luego , sino te organizas pasas necesidades.

 

Muchas quejas estoy leyendo para estar en un apocalipsis. ya si eso quitais bichos

Do you have a landclaim block or bedroll placed in your base? If not then sleeper zombies will respawn.

[4sheetzngeegles]

@Riamus

 

I gotta say you spoke my thoughts for this alpha. I play sp, this is the first for me ever that
I truly felt I had a choice. To play in my comfort zone, or to expand out and see what the draw
of other playstyles is.

 

I took over Moe's storefront. I won't stay but I actually had forgotten about making a forge and
a workbench before this. Now I have both. I now use the Trader for periodic questing to see how the
other side lives.

 

The POI danger stat, was a bit overt in the beginning, but it has prompted me to explore and test
my present level to decide if I Need to up my weapons and arms for the coming fights.

I use a trader now, simply as an extension of my gameplay, IE. to fulfill my needs when I misjudge
my choices.

 

Mind you that I play long days and with rudimentary tools and weapons,until they don't make me feel
safe anymore. Primitive bow, just made an iron spear t4, stone spear t6, stone hammer t3, 45, pipe
machine gun t2, stone shovel t4. thats my bar

 

All but one is from foraging, They actully feel like I earned them, going into 4 and 5 skull Pois.
High school is now a sphincter clincher.

 

I don't have a horder stash of water, or food, anymore. Now I play more of the game itself. I have a week's
rations, a bike.

 

Stealth, itself really only needs a little tweak for me, Stealth play means I take up to a Real world
hour clearing a poi.

 

I could be overpowered easily, If I wanted to. thats what i like here, I now have more of an option to
choose, as I go, not feel segregated one way or the other.  I can now play multiple genre styles in a
single playthrough.

 

But I will always be a scavenger/explorer at heart. 😉

[fragtzack]

4 hours ago, Slingblade2040 said:

Will there be a focus on food next alpha? Along with a possible nerf to the amount of ammo in those infestation quests? 

 

This whole alpha seems to have made crafting rather pointless aside from the occasional mod or making some crafting stations. Armor is almost always gotten through loot or purchased at a trader, same for tools and weapons, the trap bundles have made it pointless to craft the turrets. Same can also be said for the food bundles, the vending machines having so much food,drink and buff items that it's made crafting them pointless. 

 

Infestations loot crates and loot in general have made ammo crafting almost nonexistent.  

 

Mind you this is all SP world problems that I feel will just keep making SP a looter shooter and making crafting and survival a thing of the past.  Balancing both SP and MP isn't working out

 

And because some folks have the silly notion of oh don't use traders or just mod it as the end all solution that that isn't a viable solution that's literally doing a challenge mode or changing up vanilla into something different. If not using traders was an actual option we should be able to disable them like we do with air drops and blood moons.

 

Try 50% or less loot in settings. 

[sillls]

I wanted to ask about solar panels. I was able to buy one but found out that I need to get solar cells to go with them. I can't make or find them. I checked the wiki and found that I can only buy them. Yet I don't see any traders selling them. Even though I found a few that would sell me the panels. 

I hope that the cells are not locked behind a much higher-level gate. 

[Laz Man]

9 hours ago, meilodasreh said:

I'd like to say "good job", but "good luck" seems to be more appropriate 😛

 

Some issues to work out but worked out fine thankfully... (Playing INT/PER build)

 

 

[Dtfauss]

22 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

 

Some issues to work out but worked out fine thankfully... (Playing INT/PER build)

 

 

I appreciate you getting the flag in for the 4th.

[Riamus]

2 hours ago, sillls said:

I wanted to ask about solar panels. I was able to buy one but found out that I need to get solar cells to go with them. I can't make or find them. I checked the wiki and found that I can only buy them. Yet I don't see any traders selling them. Even though I found a few that would sell me the panels. 

I hope that the cells are not locked behind a much higher-level gate. 

They are based on trader level.  So you having a higher level or using Daring Adventurer or completing quest tiers will help you to get them to show up.  I've only seen one so far and it was quite a while after seeing the first solar bank.

[Sephiroth87xz]

13 hours ago, meilodasreh said:

Yes it is oviously a "sender/receiver" problem after all.

All faatal said was that balance is a subject to change until gold, not that they acknowledge that you have identified a balance problem, and have it fixed in the way you like better.

But anyhow, no pun intended, I apologize if I have misunderstood your talking,

and I hope the game balance will be adjusted according to what you want.

 

I still think though, there always has to be some grade of "luck factor" within this system, e.g. I have not invested points into mechanical engineering, so I will progress very slowly in vehicle crafting.

Right now I'm at day 23 and have way under 20 "vehicle magazines", so still in the "bicycle age" and there's very low hope to get to crafting the gyro at all.

So my intent is to buy it some day from the trader, when it's in stock and I can afford it.

If that wouldn't be possible, it would be bad balance because one would have to invest into vehicle crafting just for the sake of being mobile in later game stages,

which is obviously a very important part of the game to be able to get to far away locations fast.

So there has to be a chance that the stuff you didn't invest points into, still is available for you at the traders.

Seen from the perspective of a player who actually invested points into vehicle crafting, it of course then seem odd, because he will also be offered this stuff.

And then he's like "why am I being offered stuff that I also can craft, and sometimes the offered one even in better quality"

 

Maybe the "trader loot tables" could be adjusted in a way that they will not offer you stuff that you perked into, or at least not often, but "concentrate" more on stuff you didn't invest points.

Don't know if that's possible, but I think this would help preventing the situations you described (if I finally did get you right? 🤔)

Not really because i not asked to developers if there is a problem with magazine system or trader/loot/quests.

 

I have asked to them if they want to make crafting less important and unbalanced for weapons/tools compared to traders/loot/quests.

 

Then he answered they will balance the game till to gold.

 

Not the first time there is a unbalanced situation between crafting and loot and after they have added crafting and traders/quests/loot.

 

Developers simple want to keep the game balanced in all the parts of the game, if is possible.

 

 

 

The difference between a rng situation and a unbalance problem is repetition.

 

Is not so simple to adjust the trader loot tables, because isn't a problem of how often, but the presence itself of too high quality weapons.

 

Is not possibile to simple reduce the probability of spawn of this items, because this not fix the "progression speed".

 

There is a discrepancy between the "speed" of raising quality of things between crafting and traders/tools/quests.

 

Developers will need not only to fix the probability of spawn of this items, but even when they start to spawn and all this should be similar in "speed" with crafting.

 

The easy solution can be to raise the probability of spawn of magazine, but this will make the progression more quickly, probably too much.

 

And maybe they need to add new things with the future big patches, so they will need to modify again this progression.

 

Isn't something they can solve now, for this Developers answered they will need to balance till gold.

10 hours ago, Riamus said:

A couple notes- your perks have nothing to do with what the trader sells or what you get for quest rewards.  (Other than that Daring Adventurer increases the Trader Stage and therefore it can sell better stuff).  If you perk into knives and pistols, you will still have a random chance to find any weapons in quest rewards and trader inventory.  No bonuses there.  The perks will help you only in what you can find in loot.  However, it doesn't guarantee you'll find specific stuff in loot and it doesn't mean you won't find other things in loot.  It's still RNG.

 

I haven't noticed any noticeable increase in specific weapons dropping in loot based on perks.  I think it's a very low increase in chance.  Magazines get a big increase but parts and weapons/tools don't seem to get much increase.  It is possible the increase needs adjusted or it is also possible that it is bugged.  But it is also quite possible it's just RNG.

The problem isn't magazine and perks itself.

 

Is the traders/quests/loot aren't in line with the progression of crafting.

 

Traders/quests/loot make the game too easy too quickly, giving too soon, too high quality weapons.

 

Traders/quests/loot need to be balanced to a progression "speed" more similar to actual crafting progression speed.

 

Actually the situation is too much unbalanced.

 

A developer said magazine system make the quality range not overlapping, they needed to craft the various quality of weapons.

Not anymore at the will of random numbers.

 

Spoiler

https://community.7daystodie.com/topic/28129-alpha-21-dev-diary/page/14/#comment-486363

A steady progression i would say and magazine system achieve this.

 

Traders/quests/loot actually break this progression and make players overlapping quality ranges again.

Edited July 4, 2023 by Sephiroth87xz (see edit history)

[Philipp]

A question regarding to the magazines.

 

I am on day 10 and skilled to motorcycles already in hope to find more car-magazines.

After searching a lot I found 17 in total in 10 days. 

I did not skill any point into Medic, but I already found 28!

 

And it's not like that I am only looting pop n pills etc... But I wont stop finding these Medic magazines. 

Is there a game-mechnaic that I just dont understand? 

 

Another thing regarding to the magazines:

 

I love that crafting is way more relevant in the game, but for example. 

My friend gave me a Steel Club lvl 4 as a Quest reward. Im only able to craft lvl 5 wood Clubs. 

So the motivation for finding new club magazines anymore is very low. 

 

To me, It would make sense that I cant repair stuff im Not able to craft by myself. 

So I have to consider if I use the weapon in a certain Situation or not. 

 

Yes, if my friend can craft something and he is not online it would be Bad since I couldnt repair it without him. So a solution would be, that, if one of your Team-mates is able to craft it, (online or offline) you can repair it. 

That would be a great change to the game, at least for me. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Eduho]

Hace 10 horas, hiemfire dijo:

¿Tiene un bloque de reclamación o un rollo de cama colocado en su base? Si no, entonces los zombis durmientes reaparecerán.

Buenas, las dos cosas , es lo raro 

[RipClaw]

1 hour ago, Philipp said:

A question regarding to the magazines.

 

I am on day 10 and skilled to motorcycles already in hope to find more car-magazines.

After searching a lot I found 17 in total in 10 days. 

I did not skill any point into Medic, but I already found 28!

 

And it's not like that I am only looting pop n pills etc... But I wont stop finding these Medic magazines. 

Is there a game-mechnaic that I just dont understand? 

The reason for this is that the medicine magazines do not have to share their place in the loot table with other magazines. In every medicine pile you will find a medicine magazine. In contrast, the vehicle magazines have to share their place in the lot table with at least the magazines for salvage tools.

 

Edited July 4, 2023 by RipClaw (see edit history)

[Philipp]

19 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

The reason for this is that the medicine magazines do not have to share their place in the loot table with other magazines. In every medicine pile you will find a medicine magazine. In contrast, the vehicle magazines have to share their place in the lot table with at least the magazines for salvage tools.

 

 

Hmm thats logic haha. 

Thank you. 

[RipClaw]

3 hours ago, Sephiroth87xz said:

The problem isn't magazine and perks itself.

 

Is the traders/quests/loot aren't in line with the progression of crafting.

 

Traders/quests/loot make the game too easy too quickly, giving too soon, too high quality weapons.

 

Traders/quests/loot need to be balanced to a progression "speed" more similar to actual crafting progression speed.

 

Actually the situation is too much unbalanced.

I honestly doubt that they will ever really be able to balance it so that it works for every playthrough and every playstyle.

 

Crafting, looting and the trader all have their own status values that needs to be balanced. You can think of it as trying to synchronise a bunch of different clocks. Over time the clocks will diverge and show different times.

 

There are too many variables that affect progress in crafting for it to be reliably predictable. For looting, progress depends on the biome and the level of POIs, and for the trader, it all depends on how many quests you do and whether you invest points in Daring Adventurer.

 

To balance all this, you would have to combine everything under one status value and remove all bonuses and modifiers. The best thing that the developers could do is to determine a kind of average gameplay from as many gameplays as possible.

Edited July 4, 2023 by RipClaw (see edit history)

[Riamus]

3 hours ago, Philipp said:

I love that crafting is way more relevant in the game, but for example. 

My friend gave me a Steel Club lvl 4 as a Quest reward. Im only able to craft lvl 5 wood Clubs. 

So the motivation for finding new club magazines anymore is very low. 

 

To me, It would make sense that I cant repair stuff im Not able to craft by myself. 

So I have to consider if I use the weapon in a certain Situation or not. 

 

Yes, if my friend can craft something and he is not online it would be Bad since I couldnt repair it without him. So a solution would be, that, if one of your Team-mates is able to craft it, (online or offline) you can repair it. 

That would be a great change to the game, at least for me. 

Crafting is one way to progress your weapons and armor.  Purchasing, looting and quest rewards are others.  You can use any combination of these to progress.  There are ways to increase the speed of each of these depending on which method you prefer.  For example, putting points into Daring Adventurer will make it so the trader will offer better gear for sale sooner than normal.  If you want to buy items, you can use this perk to get the items faster (I think this also affects quest rewards but am not positive).  If you want to mainly loot items to progress, put points into Lucky Looter and you'll get better equipment in loot faster.  You can also loot in higher biomes than the forest to increase the loot quality.  If you want to craft faster, put at least one point into the relevant perk(s) for the magazine(s) you want to loot more of and then go out and start looting magazines from every mailbox and newspaper stand you find as well as all Crack-A-Book stores.  If you're looking for specific magazines, focus on the locations most likely to give you those.  For example, Forge Ahead magazines are found very often in workbenches and cement mixers and forges.  So checking POI that have these, like construction sites and especially trader compounds will help speed these up.

 

You have the choice of how you want to progress and what you choose to do will affect which one will progress fastest.  If you don't want loot to be faster than crafting, don't use Lucky Looter and don't go to the higher biomes, for example.

 

Once you get a high level piece of equipment, no matter how you got it, you pretty much aren't going to care about getting it again, whether through crafting or some other method like looting.  That isn't limited to only crafting.

 

As far as only repairing what you can craft, that might work in single player but not in multiplayer.  As you pointed out, if someone it playing in a group where different people craft different things (this should be how it's done; everyone shouldn't be reading all magazines as that will slow you way down) and that person is offline when your equipment breaks, you would not be able to continue to use it until they are back online at the same time you are.  That's a very bad option for multiplayer games.  Your "teammates" aren't teammates when they are offline.  You have to rejoin the party every time you join the game.  If you mean allies, that is a little better but still not a great option, imo.  Besides, it's not like someone couldn't figure out how to repair something even if they can't craft it.  I can repair (replace) a flat tire but that doesn't mean I can craft a car.  I think this option would end up with most players being upset about the change rather than being a benefit.  There are other ways to balance things.

[RipClaw]

1 hour ago, Riamus said:

As far as only repairing what you can craft, that might work in single player but not in multiplayer. 

I would argue that it doesn't even work in single player. Especially in the early game, there are items that you can find if you're lucky, but it's sometimes a long way to go before you can craft them yourself. These include the wrench, a toilet pistol and the toilet knife. All of them are usually of low quality and therefore have to be repaired often.

 

[meganoth]

5 hours ago, RipClaw said:

I honestly doubt that they will ever really be able to balance it so that it works for every playthrough and every playstyle.

 

Crafting, looting and the trader all have their own status values that needs to be balanced. You can think of it as trying to synchronise a bunch of different clocks. Over time the clocks will diverge and show different times.

 

There are too many variables that affect progress in crafting for it to be reliably predictable. For looting, progress depends on the biome and the level of POIs, and for the trader, it all depends on how many quests you do and whether you invest points in Daring Adventurer.

 

To balance all this, you would have to combine everything under one status value and remove all bonuses and modifiers. The best thing that the developers could do is to determine a kind of average gameplay from as many gameplays as possible.

 

They have at least two possible ways to achieve an accepable balance:

 

1) Individual magazines that are found in more places (like the cooking magazine) or have less competition in their loot boxes (medical) get general correction values for their drop probability until tests games seem balanced.

I would assume they have a loot simulator software after all this time where they can test this without human interaction, if not that is something they should write even this late in the game as it saves a lot of time.

 

2) An easier way would be to find out how often specific boxes are looted by an average player and how often a specific magazine drops from those and adjust the probabilities of those individual loot boxes so that every magazine is found with the same probability. So the probability of finding cooking magazines in cupboards would decrease as well as the probability of medical magazines in medicine "piles". And the probability and number of weapon mags in safes would have to increase.

 

Now naturally players will tend to look for specific magazines and prefer looting one type of loot box. But that a player can influence his chances is intended by the current design of 7d2d, only the 'average' case where a player does not look for specific loot boxes has to yield every magazine with about the same probability.

 

 

Edited July 4, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[zztong]

11 hours ago, sillls said:

I wanted to ask about solar panels. I was able to buy one but found out that I need to get solar cells to go with them. I can't make or find them. I checked the wiki and found that I can only buy them. Yet I don't see any traders selling them. Even though I found a few that would sell me the panels. 

I hope that the cells are not locked behind a much higher-level gate. 

 

Raimus covered this a little. They are available from the Trader, but I don't yet know at what point in A21. In A20, they were available very late in the game and I think you had to use Perks to improve your relationship.

 

I do vaguely recall only quality 3+ cells came from the Trader and that I had added some XML code to a private game to allow quality 1 and 2 cells to be available earlier. I went looking for that code, and here it is. Note that this was for A20 and I've not tried it in A21.

 

<traders>
    <!-- Add lower quality Solar stuff to the Trader's electrical group.. -->
    <insertAfter xpath="/traders/trader_item_groups/trader_item_group[@name='traderElectrical']/item[@name='switch']">
        <item name="solarbank" count="1"/>
        <item name="solarCell" count="1,2" quality="1,2"/>
    </insertAfter>
</traders>

 

I'm sure the Devs are thinking "free power" is a game play issue, and I would agree. Though as a solar enthusiast, I like to see it in the game and not just a final thought before I shutdown my world and move to a new game, if I even get that far into the game.

[RipClaw]

9 minutes ago, zztong said:

Raimus covered this a little. They are available from the Trader, but I don't yet know at what point in A21. In A20, they were available very late in the game and I think you had to use Perks to improve your relationship.

In A21 you need to be at least trader stage 55 for solar items to appear and you should have a trader Bob as he has more electrical items.

Temreki made a video about this and has a spreadsheet linked to calculate your traderstage:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tPYrItQjIs

 

[Roland]

18 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

That he's so busy actually developing the game that he doesn't have time to come up with a proper horde base? 

That he actually created that POI and that particular gas station canopy and secretly increased the hp of the blocks supporting it to 100k….

[RipClaw]

37 minutes ago, Roland said:

That he actually created that POI and that particular gas station canopy and secretly increased the hp of the blocks supporting it to 100k….

This means that, in a manner of speaking, he has built his horde base from scratch. 😉

[Mister Forgash]

18 hours ago, Riamus said:

The difficulty for some is that they can only do things in the "most efficient" way and so if they can buy something to have it sooner, they will do so.  And then are upset that they could get it so easily.  I always say that if you don't enjoy something because of how you're doing it, just do it differently and in a way you do enjoy.  If you don't like buying stuff from traders because it's too easy, then don't buy things from traders or at least reduce what you buy.  It may not be the "most efficient" option but if you aren't enjoying it, then you have the choice to not do it.  No one forces you to play the game in a way you don't enjoy other than yourself.  I usually get a response back that they can't help but play efficiently, though that is really a choice they make even if they don't see it that way.

I usually think your takes are spot on, but I'm going to disagree here. I think this argument sounds really close to that made with certain horde base designs that took advantage of blocks zombies wouldn't cross/break to stay safe through the night, and then people would say 'I'm just playing the game the way I want, why is that a problem to you?'

The way I see it, it's just plain balance. The trader in this iteration is very strong. I think it's too strong. There may even be enough people agreeing to give credence to this claim. 
Gaming with my friends, it's day... 12? he's perception build, lucky looter maxed, no int., vanilla settings except 75% loot 125%XP We'd gotten him a Q2 iron spear early in the week- as we're working through our T3 quests with the trader and do turn ins, he gets a level 5 steel spear as a quest reward. .. From T2Q2 to T3Q5 and again, he's not even spec'd into traders, nor were we that deep in the trader quests. I don't think it's on the player to say 'I don't want -that-' much of an upgrade, it's on the development to make sure player progression is smoothed.