It’s a bit of an old thread, but it got me to make an account on the forum. I’m mostly replying to the points made in the discussion. I don’t have a strong opinion on this specific nerf as I haven’t played the game enough.
I’ve just started playing the game and given how many times I’ve died already, I would say the game is pretty hard on default settings for new players. There seem to be plenty of ways to dial up the difficulty for veterans.
I haven’t been able to craft a knife spear yet. I have played the game for about 10 hours, but not surviving long enough or getting the right materials. I suppose I’m playing with the nerfed version, I don’t know how to check.
But I have been burned in the past with games nerfing things “for realism” while they were mostly armchair warriors with very subjective ideas. In the end it’s still a game, and realism usually isn’t a fun game and almost impossible to capture in a few numbers. In my view you need quite an advanced physics simulation before any realism claims make sense, like the detail level some racing games simulate cars.
I’ve seen a lot of cases were nerfs have been to harsh and had to be (partially) reverted later, or just didn’t address the underlying problem to begin with.
As for spears, or more generally pole weapons: Those seem to have been the most popular type of main weapon all across the world until about the seventeen hundreds. Their main drawbacks are mostly relevant in a civil society, making them even better in the zombie apocalypse.
Matt Easton from Scola Gladiatoria makes a lot of good videos about all kinds of melee weapons, this one might fit the discussion:
My main reason to vote against the nerf would be that it now seems to be to weak to be useful if I understand the comments. An item only useful to level your crafting doesn’t seem like the best game design.
Crafting in real life is hard and requires a lot of time, materials and attempts to master, but that’s not fun in a game either if you simulate that in too much detail. See for example this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA3lIuN_zVE
As such the crafting in the game should mostly represent the successful attempts or it becomes really tedious. It should yield useful items.
My point is that realism is often a poor advisor for good game design.
