I'm glad, I like the new map change, how the random encounters are set up is good and I'm glad they're back to exploration finally. I'm used to EA games and I'm happy to wait for things to improve etc, 1.0 versions which have long standing issues are a bit of annoyance for me though since it should be the quality of a finished product regardless of more being added and changed in the future so I definitely judge harsher after that point.
100% which is why I said about the fun and tediousness being individual tastes, bosses are exciting for some and boring for others. To me puzzles are a fun challenge if done right but easy to make tedious and to someone not into them they're frustrating and boring. The solution is either have multiple ways of achieving the same goal or probably the better though not exclusive one (at least main goal) and more along the lines you said, just stick to the game plan and if anything tweak it to feedback, if players don't like the game perhaps it's not for them.
Slight issue here though comes from what bojo2736 is saying, the game we have now isn't the one we were advertised and bought. To me the Avatar change was awful, they matched the game aesthetic then became freaky looking things I would expect to see in any game, I'm sure a lot of people love them though.
It's also where they tripped themselves up IMO, they took the original game idea of explore and the editor...shifted focus, threw Playlands etc at it and it went a bit downhill until recently.
If anything's changed and not just new optional assets added they're always going to get mixed reviews about it.
GUI and music are improvements from one persons view and abominations from another, some can be failed attempts with good intentions like the few GUI changes we've had over time or just the preference of the studio.
My main issues with GUI now is the organisation of it all in game, I'd still prefer gauges to show heat and hunger since humans don't just suddenly go from fine to suffering from heat/starving, it's a gradual thing. Obviously the main menu too, probably the most weirdly cluttered I've ever seen.
Maps similar I suppose, it's a change which could be tweaked but not everyone's going to like it, the kind of things I mentioned above might help best of both worlds so people can just not use some features if they don't want though.
The loss of water manipulation and land near it and I assume the 1st person camera are technical issues, I agree with removing them to focus elsewhere then coming back to them, but I wouldn't have expected 1.0 to happen before then. At least my main issue with 1st person was It let you place items properly and that's solved with the current implementation, since I play in 3rd person anyway it's not an issue for me anymore.
The prop pack's essentially a requested change by players, though from a long time ago but it's also an example of not being able to please everyone.
Really struggling with the prop pack issue though since it's still extremely op, perhaps they need an upgrade for it which puts it back how it was or some kinda middle ground but with massive build requirements?
I think the idea was to ease movement rather than become main source and they just took so long to actually address it, my 2018 post it must have already been being looking at since Ane mentioned charging it.
The only thing I miss about the old one was being able to just fly up a bit to keep me safe if I need to answer the door or something due to lack of pause.
It's very different I agree, what I meant though was with music the worst case is turn it off and play without or play your own music. It's not the same and I WOULD rather a game has music I'm happy with but unless it's a music orientated game I'm not going to stop playing due to it.
Perhaps the old music should be in the old style exploration I saw on the menu to essentially just give access to the old game (I assume it's just the few ylands spawned at random how they used to be)