This server is Madman's server.  His server, his rules.  He can run it as he sees fit period.  I see a fair amount of complaining on settings, game issues and attempts to make the server the way an individual player wants it to be.  To me this is not respectful of his investment of time and resources in making available the best 7 days to die server out there (I see a lot people making a point when they are frustrated with issues to say they are not placing blame on Madman or the admins and that is good).

However in this instance Madman has asked all the players for their feedback on the question of difficulty settings.  So the comments that follow are not intended to be criticism but rather an effort to present my opinion on the question. 

Personally I prefer the difficulty to be less than 5.  Having a chance to play on both settings was a good idea as it made it clear to me that there is clear difference to me in how much I enjoy playing on the lower setting vrs difficulty 5.  I would not have thought it would have made that much difference but it does to me. 

I don't enjoy getting the crap kicked out of me every time I enter a POI to loot.  I don't enjoy barely surviving and having my game play suppressed by Ferrals while i'm trying to survive with basic gear.  I don't find satisfaction dying over and over in an extremely difficult struggle... some struggle sure.  I only have so much time to play and I prefer my play to be at least somewhat casual.

I acknowledge there are those who do enjoy the struggle on difficulty 5.  I respect that (more power to you) and I don't think those players should have to play on difficulty 1 just because another player prefers that setting.  Likewise I don't think players should be forced to play on difficulty 5.  There are so many different play styles that it would be difficult to make accommodations for all.  For that reason I believe in a large group setting such as game servers extremes should be avoided.  No difficulty 1 and no difficulty 5.  Personally I would choose difficulty 4 but could also enjoy 3.

Two severs at two different settings seems a reasonable solution but as mentioned by a previous poster, making the donor server diff 5 and server two a lower setting is not a perfect solution as there are some donors and may be potential donors who will not find the harder setting playable. Unfortunately there is no easy one size fits all solution so we are back to reasonable compromise IMO.

If we set an extreme setting on the only server that reserves donor slots then perhaps it should be current donors who vote on that setting.  If it is the general population voting then perhaps that setting should be on the non reserve server.  Perhaps we need to split reserve slots between both servers (15 per server for example).  Just a thought good/bad.

Again just my opinion and preference and they should only carry the weight of such.  I am committed to playing on GZ.

This a excellent server and I truly do appreciate all the efforts that go into making is such by Madman and the admins (those currently serving and those who served in the past).  We all reap the benefits of Your efforts.