Roland

If the progression curve of the players had even the smallest chance of falling behind the progression curve of the difficulty of the game then I might agree with you that unless you prioritize the opening of containers to the best person suited to that container your progression would be hindered to the detriment of possibly losing the game and being overwhelmed by the zombies. But both you and I know that isn't the case since it is phenomenally easy to quickly outpace what the game throws at us. If my group doesn't prioritize the opening of containers to maximize magazine distribution and just plays normally and your group does seek to maximize magazine boosts by each team member thus putting a strict limit on who opens any container then my group will be just be slightly ahead of the difficulty curve of the game while your group will be well beyond it almost from the very start. Personally, I would find your situation boring and a game of just rinsing and repeating all the activities without any challenge whereas my situation would carry risk and the possibility of being overwhelmed even if it still unlikely to happen. I've played the game with 50% loot and still managed to keep pace with the game's difficulty progression. So the question really is why does your group feel the need to progress so quickly that you'll do it at the expense of keeping things simple and fun for everyone? If you loosened up your strict rules about who gets to open what container so that your team dynamic wasn't so complicated and unfun you'd STILL find yourselves ahead of the game progression curve. The excuse that you don't want to hinder your progression is irrelevant because you could slow your pace by quite a bit and still keep pace with the game so there isn't any effectual hinderance relative to the game in any case.

It's a hybrid at this point. For simplicity's sake they won't change the name of their updates but there is no question that the current development phase definitely has elements of beta and there are precious few new core features that still need to be added. On topic, due to the nature of the voxel terrain, they may never completely solve this issue so that players are guaranteed to never lose a vehicle as the world generates. They've reduced the use cases dramatically but it is definitely a good idea to pick up your vehicles before logging out. That being said, I've left my vehicles out parked around my base for years now and haven't lost a single one in both single and multi-player games.

Mazal Tov!

They're working on a pop-up message that will remind you periodically to remove any empty cups or mugs you might have on your desk near your monitor because they don't want empty containers in the game or near the game.

I get it that it is about realism but my point is that when we purchase a game and encounter its rules for the first time we tend to accept them as the way that game plays. I'm willing to bet that if you found this game today and purchased it and played it you would probably think that it was weird that water could not be gathered but you also probably would have quickly accepted it as a quirky limitation imposed by the developers-- especially if you felt that overall it was a fun game. The main source of fuel for the debate is the fact that it was one way and now it is another and people who experienced both and liked the original way care enough to bring it up. Now, on the other hand, I'm willing to admit that if TFP changed it back to us being able to gather water from water sources probably few to none of the new players who have only known the A21 ruleset would complain about suddenly being able to gather water and getting empty jars back after drinking. 🤣

There are tons of games that all handle water survival differently. Some even ignore water and thirst altogether. Any time I approach a game in the survival genre I figure out what the rules are and then adopt those in my gameplay and survival strategies. Very rarely have I seen a game that makes all survival features hyper realistic. The issue that is really going on here is that there are some long-time players who were used to the old mechanics and found the new mechanic jarring compared to the old. That's the entire reason for the debate. Most new players won't reject the game or proclaim it not survival because of how jars are represented or that there are limitations imposed on gathering water. They will simply come to figure out what the mechanic is and then adopt the game's reality into their personal gameplay. Some will make connections in their mind to explain why it is the way it is to help their own immersion and others won't even think about it once they understand how it works. Inventory is a great example of something that people joke about how unrealistic it is but nobody really expects it to conform to reality. In fact, many double down and install backpack enlargement mods so they can push things to even greater unrealistic proportions. I wonder how many people complaining about the lack of empty jars and how it is unrealistic that we can't gather water into containers from lakes currently have a backpack mod installed...

I'm pretty sure looting toilets for water is more of a funny gag than an attempt to realistically mirror the evaporation state of water tanks after 6 months of inactivity. I agree that murky water in loot is too high. It was originally lower before the release and I don't know whether someone panicked at the last minute about possible death spirals due to thirst and so upped it to make things more forgiving but it sure seems like the need to drink from ponds, rivers, and gutters was real and a dew collector was a must in the pre-release version and now they seem optional to just scavenging POIs for all you really need.

Diablo is basically a university degree program in min/maxing. It promotes it, rewards it, and there are zero drawbacks to doing it with that game. In fact, it is required in order to keep progressing in the game from quest to quest without having to stop and grind on lesser dungeons for awhile in order to get your character up to scratch for whatever your current quest is. 7 Days to Die is not designed for min/maxing. It allows it but most who do it quickly feel unsatisfied and bored since the game's difficulty curve is so easily maintained without particularly focusing on min/maxing. In addition the progression ladder is much shorter than Diablo so min/maxing will get the player to the end of 7 Day's content extremely fast and then it is just the same thing with nothing new to strive for all the time. You CAN play 7 Days to Die like Diablo but people should be mindful of what results they want to get and understand that 7 Days to Die questing and dungeon delving does not have to be played similarly to Diablo at all. Do it if it brings you joy but stop it if it frustrates you and makes the game end too quickly.

They're hoping we will count A22 development from the day they start the A22 dev diary so they can come in under a year...

IMPORTANT!!!!! good luck.

No worries. I think there are a lot of good ideas that have been floated that restore the immersion of being able to gather water from water sources but still keep empty jars absent as items. I'm not opposed to tweaks to the current system. I'm also fine with the current system as it is and I'm perfectly okay with the fact that some people aren't going to like it. All of these ideas are great starters for new mods even if TFP decides not to change things.

In regards to this idea, I too would like to know what exactly happens to the incapacitated players? Do they just sit and wait? Are they watching the rest play in some kind of view format? Are they logged out and log in until the first aid kit is applied? Could be fun but it could also be super boring if it takes a long time for a team mate to come get you especially if it means missing out on most of horde night. Not against it as an option for sure.

Cool. So can you just start calling it that and be satisfied....?

When you should be sleeping?!? Cheese alert!!!

Yes, I was only referring to it as feeling like an exploit within my own sensibilities and not proclaiming your playstyle cheating. My only judgement/side eye for other people's playstyles are for those who repeatedly do things that lead to them not having fun. If the way someone plays is fun then it is right and good then I'm happy for them and I am perfectly willing to self-limit and enforce my own rules for myself rather than try to get the game to be changed in order to enforce the way I like to play. I know that sometimes changes occur that bungle up someone's play style and I understand why that leads to anger. When that happens to me (and it has happened) I simply adjust my own rules and objectives to get to the fun again. Sometimes I wonder about folks who demand the balance be changed to prevent something if they've thought it through that such changes enforced would step on many many toes and just because they don't have will power to self-enforce rules if the game doesn't force it--that doesn't mean the devs aren't doing their jobs if they decide to leave things on the open-ended side of the spectrum or leave it to modders to enforce some different ruleset.

On the long term I don't think TFP wants to limit anything. I think that ideally they would like there to be a progression from scarcity to abundance with a period of time in there where you might have to make choices for how you use your resources because there isn't enough to do everything. That will, of course, be truer for those who play less efficiently than those who play more efficiently. I don't think TFP can or even wants to balance it into a one balance fits all-- especially since their design philosophy is to allow multiple paths to get what you want. This means that there probably will be very little to no preventative measures taken to limit people from rushing the progression if they so choose. Some people rush the progression and feel great fulfillment and fun. Others rush the progression and by so doing ruin the fun for themselves. I know, for myself, rushing the progression would ruin the fun so I make conscious choices to not rush. You're viewing the equality after the dew collectors are built. I agree that once I have my farm of dew collectors and you have your stack of empty jars the effort and gameplay loop for getting water is very similar. You take your stack of jars to a source and fill them up and bring them back to boil. I collect my water from each collector and bring them back. You can more easily gather tons of more water but you still have to boil it while I am limited to the number of collectors I've built but they are already boiled so to speak. That comparison is essentially equal but a matter of taste, yes. The part that I feel is better and more enjoyable is the process of building that collector farm. I feel like the process of gathering the resources and the money to purchase the filters and the progressive nature of crafting more and more collectors to the point where I feel I'm good for the rest of the game is akin to building a base with materials I harvested myself. Reusable empty jars along with more to be found as you naturally scavenge feels like a free trip to the point where water is no longer an issue. That feels like just being gifted all the building materials for the base I'm going to build. Now, I know not everyone enjoys crafting the collector farms. I can understand if they dislike that gameplay loop, why they might wish for the old version. To them, I can only hope that mods make their fun great again. But for me, I throw away all the empty jars I get because then there is absolutely no need for dew collectors and I want to build my farm just as much as I want to establish my base and get my food farm going and my crafting stations and my vehicles. It is also why I feel that there is currently too much murky water in loot. It used to be more scarce and you were definitely more dependent upon getting a dew collector farm established. But that is my brand of fun that not everyone is going to share. So one of the big hang-ups I have with my own sense of immersion is time. I feel that there is just way too much that we can accomplish in a 24-hour period of time beyond what we could in real life. Everyone has their real life vs game life hang-ups and this one is mine. I don't complain or call for limiting factors to be added to the game to make it more even and honestly I wouldn't want it to mirror real life since that would just be boring. With a stone axe I would be hacking at the same tree for three weeks before it came down. BUT....the amount of trees we can chop down with a stone axe or any axe for that matter is too unrealistic for me to bear and that is simply one of many many things. You guys should check out Nate Bargatze's bit about digging a hole...lol In general, I try to do in a day's time what I feel is more realistic while still fun. I reduce loot to 50% at times and play 30 minute days at times and increase block hp all to slow me down in what I can accomplish in a typical day's timeframe. I do enjoy those settings but they have other drawbacks. So a lot of the time I play default but just pace myself on purpose-- because for whatever reason I am hyper-aware about what I feel is our exploitive ability to unnaturally accomplish so much so fast. I know we can unnaturally carry more than reality allows and crops grow unnaturally fast and this is a fantasy game about zombies-- which is why I don't ever press my view that even in natural play without even trying to rush the progression, we still have this super advantage that makes survival a lot easier than it would be. It's just simpler for me to make objectives for myself each day that I feel are realistic enough to still be fun as a game and then accomplish those objectives and definitely don't try to maximize every single drop of time to getting ahead as quickly as possible since that just goes against my grain. Night time is interesting. If I stay in my base and organize stuff, spend my skill points, cook, craft, and do a bit of construction I don't feel too bad that I would normally be sleeping at night. But if I go out adventuring completing quests and looting POIs then I do feel that I'm taking advantage of the game's limitation that we don't sleep and it feels wrong to me. One of the advantages of 30 minute days is that the nights are much shorter-- but then the downside is that you never get a really epic horde night either. So, again, I tend to play default most of the time and try not to be too active at night. Weird, I know and probably not good to develop limitations for everyone for the vanilla version just because I feel like we should all be sleeping anyway.

In A20 there were tons of empty jars, jars of water, jars of murky water, jars of tea and other drinks in various loot containers spread all over the map. Every time you drank a drink of any kind you would get an empty jar returned. That is how jars magically would build up in your inventory so quickly because you would find additional jars constantly and jars you already possessed never got used up ever so that personally, I never had to craft jars. I always had plenty. Now it's just drinks you find. You drink it and it is gone. No snowball effect. You mangled the meaning of what I posted before your answer. I said that TFP did not intend there to be a long term struggle with water and that it was expected for players to solve their water survival issues during the early game. You then came back and said you were glad that TFP did not intend there to be any struggle at all because, in your opinion, there never is any struggle at all and TFP failed if they were trying to create a struggle so it was good that their goal wasn't trying to create a struggle for water. I didn't say what you thought I was saying so I clarified it. We just will have to agree to disagree that the new system does not create any more of a struggle than the old system did. Oops, sorry. I'm not trying to be unfun. There tends to be a lot of speculation about dev motivation that I happen to have an inside view about so it isn't really semantics I'm quibbling over rather than refuting a wildly speculative guess at why and how the devs updated the game the way they did with my actual witness of how it went down. I know for players it was A20 one day and then A21 the next day so changes can seem sudden but for internal staff it was A21 for close to a year before A21 released so nothing about it was sudden or untested by time you got your hands on it. The same goes for every other change. We played with the change from LBD to centralized skillpoints to shop for perks for months and months before A17 dropped. That wasn't some sudden whimsical change. In fact, I can't think of a single change over the years that was enacted on the night before an update was released to the public. They were all played to death by internal staff well before the release. So even though you've been around for years, if you actually feel like changes are made suddenly and without thought, playtesting, and planning then you aren't thinking it through from the perspective of the development team. Maybe if the dev cycle between each alpha was only a month or two you could claim not enough time spent on these changes but these dev cycles have lasted 1-1.5 years and most of the time the major gameplay changes we've seen were finished at least 6 months before release.

In light of the recent Unity fee debacle, the answer is still no. TFP won't be switching engines for 7 Days to Die. The most recent backpedal from Unity means that TFP is safe from user install fees provided they don't update to a post-January 2024 version. I think there is one additional version they can upgrade to beyond their current version and still avoid the new fees. Whether or not they decide to do that or simply release their game with the current version remains to be seen. But regardlesss, it will be a version of Unity.

Go set up an outpost near one of your other traders and spend a few days away. See if the screamers follow you to your next area. If they do, then there is probably a bug.

um...sorry? So now I see why you might have gotten a false impression from a post of mine previously because you pretty much just mangled what I said this time and are setting yourself up for a new false impression. Let me be clear: TFP's goal was for water survival to be more of a struggle than it has been historically in this game. The struggle was not intended to be one that lasts weeks and weeks and weeks into your playthrough but simply introduces a process by which you would need to secure an abundance of water. A20 with reusable empty glass jars: Abundance achieved immediately and without much effort. You can largely ignore it and yet you find yourself with stacks of jars that can all be filled at once. A21 with no empty glass jars: Abundance achieved after exerting effort. If you ignore it you can find yourself dying of thirst so you must expend some time and effort in securing your abundance. Is there a struggle in the early game for water beyond what there once was? Absolutely. More experienced players adjusted quickly and felt less of a struggle, but less experienced players definitely reported a struggle. Beyond the struggle, in the new system there is definitely a greater need to make tea and better drinks rather than simply drinking water all the time even after you have your infrastructure in place. For those who use water for other things besides drinking there are more times in the current system where you must choose how to allocate your water. This was never an issue or a choice to be made in the old system. I never said that TFP didn't intend to increase the struggle for water. I said that the struggle shouldn't extend beyond the early game once you have dew collectors in place or an income going where you can buy all you need-- whichever path you wish to follow. Some people play so efficiently that they can get 4-5 dew collectors up and running in the first few days but others take a week or two to get to that point. Either way, the water struggle comes to an end relatively early in the game which is what the devs intended but it does require more effort to execute than in the past which is also what the devs intended. It does make a big difference to me. Glass jars feels like playing with the creative menu activated to me. They make the first few days to the first couple weeks (Depending on how crazy efficiently you play) completely inconsequential. I personally enjoy having to juggle dew collector, shelter, food, quests, scavenging, resource gathering, etc and I feel it would be a step backward to remove one of the balls I'm currently juggling and just go back to automatically having infinite water. As I stated, I throw away all the glass jars I acquire while playing District Zero because I very much enjoy the new system. It's amazing how often I have to throw jars away-- they build up so quickly and without the slightest effort.... As far as knee-jerk adding or removing things, where have you gotten that idea? A knee-jerk is a reactionary change because you are fearful of the backlash. The mantra for the glass jars has always been "Nobody asked for this change, nobody wanted this change". So who the heck were the devs reacting to when they removed the glass jars? Furthermore, this change was enacted early in the A21 development cycle. There was over a year of playtesting and adjustments made and plenty of time for the devs to choose to go back and revert if after months of playing it they felt it was a bad change. No, there was nothing knee-jerk or sudden about the water overhaul. Now, if the devs listened to you and other critics of the system right now and got rid of it for A21.3, THAT would be the epitome of a knee-jerk change. That's why you shouldn't expect any changes other than small adjustments until at least A22 or A23. The adjustment I personally would make would be to reduce the amount of murky water that drops in containers closer to the original amount. It is far too generous right now, imo.

There is no intent for long-term water scarcity. It is something that is intended for the player to solve in the early game. . I have no idea what you mean by “duct tape doesn’t matter, or any other recipe” so I don’t know if you understood me or not. 😀 I doubt there is any system that is going to be able to stump a veteran of the game or feel particularly challenging unless it is intentionally punitive or draconian for that very purpose which, of course, would be disastrous for new players. The difference as I see it for myself is that re-usable empty jars that can be infinitely refilled at a nearby water source is too insignificant for my liking. Even if the time frame of solving water ends up being about the same for someone willing to min/max questing and trader economics, at least there is some conscious effort to achieve an actual objective. The new system involves scavenging for materials in order to craft objects that will produce water. I like that level of significance for me putting effort into getting the objective I want. It is the exact difference in feeling I get between building a base from resources I harvested myself vs opening the creative menu and taking stacks of everything I want in order to build. I limit myself to one quest at most in a day. I explore POIs without a quest attached. I feel that, much like empty jars are for water, quests are OP for general progression. I do buy a pot on day 2 if I don’t find one on day one. I’m definitely still at tier one quests by time the first bloodmoon comes and my first few collector gets built anywhere from Day 6-8. There is more murky water in loot than there initially was when the new system was implemented so I don’t drink murky water as often as I have in the past. If I get a vitamin I will often pop it and go drink directly from a water source. Another result of the new system that I like is that I cook and drink more teas and drinks rather than just drinking water all the time. In the old system there was such a glut of water that it was just easy to drink five jars of water because there was always plenty. In the new system I want to always have tea because it goes farther. Sounds like you play much more efficiently than I do. A lot of people who say they prioritize survival often mean that they are willing to take advantage of anything the game allows since to do less wouldn’t be a survival mindset. I try not to take advantage of things the game allows that feels exploitive. 3-4 dew collectors for me would take 2-3 game weeks which is a big difference from A20 which delivered infinite water in 2-3 game days and without even focusing any effort on it. When empty jars are present they just flow into your inventory and snowball to stacks and stacks without any appreciable effort. Im glad your mod makes the game more pleasant for you. To me, empty jars just feel like cheating now and as I’m currently playing a mod that has them, I feel compelled to throw them out and ignore them so I can enjoy the otherwise great overhaul mod.

I think people have a false assumption going that TFP for some reason wants players to have to worry about water for their entire playthrough and that if a system of obtaining and stockpiling water somehow solves the player's water issue, then that system is broken. Water survival should get solved during the course of the game and it shouldn't be something the player must struggle with after a certain amount of time spent working to achieve self-reliance in that area. The problem of an infinite water source and infinitely lasting reusable jars is that the snowball effect of that system means that water survival is solved on day one, with zero struggle or progression. There is zero expense to that system or any kind of diminishing returns so the snowball rockets down that hill becoming an avalanche in mere moments. The current system, depending on how you play, can take a couple of days to a full week before you have your water source established and reach the point where the struggle is gone. In either case, it does require the player to focus on solving the issue at the opportunity cost of doing other early-game tasks which is an aspect of the new system that I greatly appreciate. How long SHOULD the player need to struggle with water? I don't know. In my games it all gets solved sometime within the first week of game time. Some playthroughs I end up needing to drink some murky water and others I never do. But in every case, the objective to solve my water issue is a real objective that I pursue and sink time into accomplishing. When I went back to play A20 and more recently when I tried the mod District Zero, it felt akin to having the creative menu on for water as the stack of empty jars just automatically built up in my inventory without any conscious effort. It was just free and didn't steal my focus from other objectives at all. District Zero's jars are more scarce than A20 but still, once I found a jar it was mine forever and the stack would've grown if I hadn't decided to just throw away all empty jars whenever I noticed them in my inventory. I'm certain TFP could iterate the current system to something that allowed for some harvesting of water from water sources in some limited way to prevent the snowball effect that reusable empty jars created and maybe they will if there's time before the end. If they do, I wouldn't necessarily be opposed. But whatever system they land on it will also have the goal of creating a short-term objective to solving the water issue. There is no search for a system that creates a long-term or whole playthrough struggle for water survival. It is meant to be solved in the early game.

Every day I try to get 130 students to look into math equations and every day they try to avoid it at all costs...

I 100% agree with you that the method of gathering the various resources in the game are not equivalent. I've never claimed that they are nor that the devs want to make gathering water the same as collecting acid or gas or stew. That has never been in question nor a goal of the devs. What was a goal was to have all containers of consumables be represented in the game in the same way and in this goal they succeeded. Glass jars now exist in the game in exactly the same manner that every consumable container exists and when you consume water or gas or acid or stew, etc., all of these items operate consistently. That has always been the beginning and end of the comparison for equivalency. If you want to add in the method of how resources are gathered in order to say that there is no equivalency then I agree with you. How can I not since it is absolutely obvious that the devs have never tried, are not trying, and have no plans to try and bring equivalency to resource gathering? As to whether the game is better or worse for how consumable containers are represented, that will vary from player to player. I wouldn't be opposed to that being changed and I never really cared that there wasn't equivalency so I'm definitely not trying to convince people that the change is good or bad. I'm just stating that glass jars now exist in the game exactly like everything else that contain stuff you use up and that for whatever reason that was a goal of the developers.

You can drink directly from that pool of water. Kind of an important part to leave out when trying to show a false equivalency and claim an immersion breaking condition when you are thirsty. If you're thirsty and concerned about your immersion then go drink from the pool. Disaster abated. There are gas pumps but you can't directly fill your car from them. You have to use a large pot to cook your stew but you can't eat directly from the pot. So the equivalency isn't about attempting to make the gathering process the same for everything. The equivalency is about having no empty containers as physical objects in the game and in that sense they succeeded in unifying all containers of consumables in the game. I don't disagree that not being able to fill a jar or a pot with water from a pool and take it home to boil is an artificial limitation. Games have tons of these as well as cases where real life limitations are ignored for the sake of fun.