After trying various paths, it appears that waiting a few more patches might not better. There is a big risk behind that.
At the moment, the version of the product has many flaws and one merit: going smoothly through the large content of the game.
The gameplay is in an alpha stage: many features (like character's special skills, panic/horror mode) are either non implemented or non functional with no situation to support the expression of the features. The list of the latter category is long, very long: secondary attacks, no meaning at the moment, a lot of items, no meaning (I could go as far as telling that healing items have no meaning as it is so easy to make it without them), base upgrades etc
The major flaw is the task completion rate: way too high currently.
The to do list is most of the time an already done list.
The pace of the story and incidentally the gameplay would want the player to fall behind so that the player must favour certain characters in the shelter over others etc
The completion rate is too high because of the scavenging runs. Hitting several locations in the same day and clearing them out is a given.
One consequence: progression and then experiencing of the content goes smoothly, it goes fast and you can see everything at little cost.
Steps have been taken to decrease the rate: for example, the party moves slower on the strategic map, which mean less hit places per day.
Nevertheless, the speed on the strategic map is a minor issue compared to the opportunity of clearing totally a level in one swoop.
Ideally, the player should come to a location with precise objectives, get what is needed and run away before risking more. Hit, loot, run.
It does not happen in the current version.
And that is because some features are missing that would make the party reliability and yield drop.
If solutions are adequate, then it would follow a demand for a change in the loot distribution: the current version does not exhibit a strong relation between high risk, high reward location. It will be one thing to decrease the yield of a run, but the player must be given the opportunity to choose the risk level.
The current picture:
-monodimensional play based on routines, most of options mean nothing, player can visit all locations, locations can be visited at a rate of two, three per day (still put the whole game duration over months mark due the large content), no survival dimension as the player bathes in resources
Possible future picture:
-multidimension play, options mean, during a playthrough, a player will not visit all the locations, will gamble on hitting certain locations, characters will be very different one from other, loss in characters will be detrimental, player will struggle and know scarcity of resources etc
That is a possible future picture.
One other is that the developpers do not manage and that their attempts make the game extremelly tedious to go through.
It is certainly a possibility, so waiting for more patches before jumping in might not be that a better idea.
