AtomicUs5000

I don't think this is even be possible since the cooldown in between the screamers should be much longer than that. If it were a bug, everybody would notice this rather quickly. It's happened before.

Well sure. Let's go to the desert and see which works better and translate it into the game somehow, lol. I was just trying to point out that the dew collector was an inappropriate choice here. It doesn't make sense for the world, and it doesn't make sense if they wanted this to be something to influence the heat map.

For the longest time I've always hit the run down country POIs first until I felt comfortable that a dog wasn't going to kill me if caught off guard in residential areas. This seems to be an even more viable survival strategy these days when the forest is safer than ever and your spawn isn't a random biome. It only takes maybe a game day to get prepared.

A dew collector was probably a bad choice for this world. In the desert, you would have to do something like cover up a bunch of collected plants to get the moisture out of them as they bake in the sun. In the snow biome, the cold air wouldn't even allow it. I would have started with making distilled water over a fire which would make sense attracting zombies. Then later on, you can upgrade to solar still with no affect on heat map. Since no jars, craft with a bucket, fill it with a bucket. Take from it with a leather flask.

Agreed. No doubt. I do hope that in the end whatever becomes the final version of all of this accounts for exactly what you said in that post: "there are many and to only be selected because you want the loot bonus should not be the only reason to select a perk." I do play MP, but its very rare in comparison to solo, so I don't really have much emotion tied into the issues that this might have brought to the group dynamic. As a solo player though, I tend to try to become a jack of all trades (or as many I can) even if it means being a master of none. So, if the chosen system starts to push me too much into a master of a single trade, I'm going to have big problems with it.

Yes, I suppose I might find that feature of "learn by example" nice in a small way. It has the potential of balancing group dynamics a bit by encouraging the players who would normally go out looting to stick around and help the builder build, the miner mine, the hunter hunt, or the farmer farm once in a while. No matter what kind of player you are, you always have the potential to help someone else out who tags along, even if that builder, miner, hunter, or farmer tags along with the looters. I don't have a problem with the magazines, nor of sharing them. All that is fine in my opinion and I don't request their removal. The problems I see are how the chances of specific magazines (or any loot for that matter) are skewed by our perks which makes finding the ones to share with our base-dwellers much harder and it continues to get even harder as time goes on. Sorry if that wasn't clear. It's what I meant by "fake randomness" and "the system that attempts to decide for players what magazines they find." I find this feature to do more harm than good in relation to group dynamics. I also find it to do harm to the overall game experience. Gamestage and lootstage already have their hands on the steering wheel that drives the course of the gameplay... add more hands and you eventually lose control completely.

They should be giant-sized and bouncing on the ground in a cartoony fashion for consistency.

I could dig it if the survival and crafting aspects were strong again and the tower defense aspect was the primary focus. Progression would simply be your real life skill playing the game, making the correct preparations, time management, and building decisions in between each horde.

Yeah, when I wrote that my mind slipped away in thought as well and that was the first thought. It's not an amazing idea, but definitely interesting and different. It suffers the similar flaws. Back on topic of the water changes specifically though, I do wish things were more of a mix. Like I've said before, I want the struggle of having to deal with carrying water in a little container at first, but then I want to earn that reward of the more convenient dew collectors. Part of the reason why people argue their likes and dislikes in such a black and white manner might be because quite often when these changes come about, the changes themselves are black and white. When LBD switched to LBP, this change was black and white and many of the opinions were black and white. Some of us had thoughts that a hybrid system would be best but it was difficult to be heard as a shade of gray in between all that black and white. I'm finding it to be the same regarding this water change even though its significance is so small compared to that of a skill system.

Better ideas in general would come about if more people took this approach to expressing opinions about changes. If enough people do it, others will learn by example.

I'd like to hear more thoughts on this., but probably within its own topic.

That's true in real life. In the game, I suppose these pollutants are coming from the same air the character is breathing?

A good point. Replacement with a craftable leather flask that is not in any loot table would solve that.

What I am saying is that if things were the other way around and we were currently discussing the removal of the system that attempts to decide for players what magazines they find, there would be no people complaining that the removal is causing a lack of togetherness clearing POIs (because people who want to do it together will still do it together. The removal would not force people apart, where the addition is attempting to force togetherness) The removal also would not force players into solo roles. (where the addition is attempting to force players out of them). Nobody would complain that the removal took away their favorite hobby of having to bring back magazines in order to have a successful group. (First off, it would not be someone’s favorite hobby and secondly because the removal does not force people to stop helping, where the addition attempts to force players to help out group members who are trying to simply enjoy the game their preferred way).

Cue adding something to the game that makes glass very valuable.

I'm not sure the global achievements show that players are or are not capable of something more difficult. You see the same range of percentages for just about any game on Steam, even if it's an easy and short 20 hour or less game. I'm pretty sure that most developers adding achievements to their games try to make sure that some are easy, some are not, some come early, some come very late. The achievements also do not reflect the retention of players. Plenty of players play for a little bit, then go play something else, then return later. There are a lot of other things to play, let alone real life responsibilities. Making the game great in the beginning should be of focus since most customers don't put in extreme number of hours. They will get their first impressions and pass on their recommendations. Making the game great beyond that should also be of focus since a large number of these players with extreme hours invested are the streamers and content providers. Their extended gameplay passes on the recommendations repeatedly to a great number (and often growing) of potential customers. Stifling the opinions of one player type to give more attention to the other has its consequences either way.

Once upon a time, it was a matter of preference. You could go the route of using the trader to get what you needed, or you could choose to fend for yourself and maybe use the trader to spend your hard-earned dukes to get something you need right away or extremely rare if you were lucky enough and the trader had it. If you relied solely on the trader from the start, you might end up making things difficult for yourself later when you don't have many dukes and need something rare. You could always get more out of the world than the trader if you were willing to put the work in.

I understand your point of view. I could get into a game like that if I could manage to muster up a group of people willing to do the same, but I just don't see this level of social complexity suiting well for this game for typical players. It's just not on that level. This is the kind of thing that should be modded. I understand your point of view of XP sharing and keeping players together, but it's also pushing players to do things they do not want to do in a sandbox game that traditionally allowed you the freedom to play a specific role for your group without consequences. If things were the other way around, and let's say magazines and this fake randomness were always there and removed, you wouldn't have players saying, "hey! because of this change nobody will help me clear POIs anymore!" or "man, I really wish I could spend my day finding what everybody else needs... I really miss that". It certainly wouldn't force players to be only farmers, builders, or miners just because now they are free to be that.

That's true. I was thinking that it would be nice to delay it by making good choices for the sake of survival. However, like I mentioned, this would be completely against everything else in the game because the standard is the better you do, the worse things get. Now that it has been brought to the front of my mind, I have no idea why I even like this game so much. No real goals, pointless progression, and over the years everything I liked has either gone away or has been simplified to the point of absurdity. Maybe I don't anymore and I'm just sticking around with hope that the game will eventually make sense or maybe I'm just chasing ghosts. I'm thinking it is time for me to come to terms.

Sounds about right at day 18 for most players. Things change quickly once you start getting to 200+ days and everything around you is picked clean of loot.

This is going to be entirely dependent on your difficulty settings, loot settings, the type of base you set up, blood moon frequency, etc. In some situations you can easily blow through an entire crate of ammo for a blood moon.

I would like to see something in the actual game dictate the frequency after the first blood moon rather than a setting. Currently (and for as long as I can remember) there is a large disconnect from the player to the world since your reward for doing well in the world is things getting worse. What that something would be, I have no idea... we don't really have much story or lore to work with here.

I had thought about this before but I decided not to even bring it up because that first blood moon horde isn't that bad, even if you affect the gamestage by putting all focus on leveling while giving yourself very long days. Then I thought about it again because every once in a while I like to do one life, short days, with BMs daily and see how long I can last, but in this case, the hordes barely even exist that first week so again I didn't see a good reason to bring it up.

I get what you are saying, but looking at this from the reverse perspective directly after a change doesn't hold much ground. If the change never happened, the freedom for players of a group to decide their own group dynamic remains unchanged. The addition of a problem for some groups to solve does not add more freedom just because there is now a new problem. The game shouldn't solve social problems, but why should the game create them? Is the fact that a player could always make things difficult for teammates a good reason to include more skewed scenarios? Strange thoughts. Besides, if this was the intention, things like shared XP would never be included in the game because it's not the game's responsibility to solve the problem of XP distribution.

He mostly shared the reins and held back on a lot of things.