zztong

No. I doubt you're a noob. For me at least, this conversation has illuminated that everyone has their own concept of what scarcity is, their own style of play, their own desired level of difficulties, and their own priorities when playing. While we could compare tastes if we discussed a standard, such as Vanilla with all default settings, we would still be unable to come to consensus because we all have different priorities -- the most striking to me being one extreme (1) a group that wants to undertake a stamina/water intensive activity such as mining during the early game, another extreme (2) a group that looks to solve food and water scarcity immediately during the early game, (3) folks in the middle with other, perhaps more flexible, priorities or an opportunistic style of play. But if we want to take more concrete goals and determine under what conditions they're achievable using Vanilla with default settings, then I'd be willing to try that. Perhaps my only real point of evidence that folks might find useful is that to me as a solo player, Vanilla water production via Dew Collectors and looting of 10 water per day is the effective equivalent to "infinite water" made available via mods.

I've noticed that too. City/Town streets are part of Tiles. Tiles are created by POI Developers. I can't know for sure, but I suspect a creative element crept into the TFP Tiles. Part of that I'm sure comes from trying to fill the gaps between POIs on Tiles. Another part of the issue is TFP usually provides 1 Tile of each type, so when you zoom out and examine a map you can find areas where there's lots of repetition. Combine the creative streets with high repetition and you get some ... I'll say "insane" ... city streets. Cities in-game are far too small to get into making subdivisions with curvy streets bounded by arterial streets. You also start to experience what I call "The Flintstones / Bedrock" effect, where you keep passing the same pond time and time again. This is why I make more and more Tiles for my modlet. My Tiles tend to favor "straight through" streets, which result in a more grid-like city. This lets the TFP creative streets become less frequent and I think then more special. I also try to use lots and lots of optional Parts so that perhaps folks won't so easily recognize a repeated Tile because more than just the POIs change.

I have not. Thanks for the info.

I agree. My comments were in response to what I perceived to be a discussion of "realistic immersion."

Oh please, no. I'll shut up, I promise.

In the pandemic, the traps for drainage pipes, sinks, and toilets in our University buildings dried up which let cockroaches into the buildings. That only took 6 months to happen. If I were getting rid of anything, it would be making all the forms of water/drink in the loot extremely scarce, basically leaving only the rivers and lakes. Assuming the game is taking place more than 6 months after the fall of civilization, the water in plumbing would have evaporated or also become toxic. Survivors would have already picked over water stored in POIs. The only significant water remaining would be the natural sources. Collecting rain water and Dew would be possible though they're not potable sources, so you'd still have to boil them. Bacteria lives on the plastic that catches the water. Bird poop and other contaminates also find their way into rain water and dew collectors. Toxic or not, folks would be drinking non-potable water out of desperation or they'd be filtering and purifying water with solar stills or something more advanced such as represented by the game's Chemistry Station. In terms of game play, I like this too, as it creates a reason to go out into the wild and not be in POIs all the time.

I suggest waiting to start the A22 Dev Diary until after A22 is released so that you come away with a negative number.

What's not cool about enjoying a fruit smoothy during a zombie apocalypse? I carry around the sunglasses for just those times.

I'm with you. I like the flavor, and since I don't have a working refrigerator, the iced drink is really refreshing in the desert temperatures.

Yes. I would suggest that the 4-5 of us chatting play a game together -- but we'd never agree on the settings and mods. It would have to be Vanilla/default.

Well I'm certainly impressed with all the different play styles and preferences -- and that's just from ~4-5 of us. It's pretty hard to compare notes between us given some pretty significant choices we make. I probably can't do justice to every variation listed, but... Limiting to 1 quest per day will certainly slow a player's ability to purchase filters for a Dew Collector compared to those who do more questing. Limiting loot to 50% will make gathering water and the resources to make Dew Collectors take longer plus reduce the amount of Dukes you can earn from selling salvage. Changing the day length to 30 minutes will certainly change the day counts we compare. One week at 60 minutes is 2 weeks at 30 minutes. If you're regularly getting mauled by zombies, you'll spend more time healing and/or go through more food and water. Staying at base during the night, and feeling compelled to return to base before night, takes time. Then there are clear differences in goals. Folks are prioritizing things like mining and base building. If I try to make a mental image of what that kind of play would be like, I can start to see how you have a significant water scarcity for many game days and that you don't get Dew Collector production settled into "water stability" (aka infinite water) -- defined by me as producing 10 jars of potable water per day -- until you get to a 2-3 week point in the game. Efficient or Inefficient, exploit or not an exploit -- all opinion, so I'll leave those alone. I don't care to have my play labeled as "exploitive" because I don't think I'm cheating. I'm just playing. But I get that you're not necessarily calling that an insult so much as a comparative to your own ideal game. Objectively speaking, we have different priorities because of our different choices. A comparison: There's no way I'm building a base until I have water and food solved. Grass fiber clothes are fine until water and food are solved. Higher quality weapons and armor are conveniences, and they can wait until water and food are solved. Armor -- that's the one thing I'll work on other than water and food. I need about two pieces of armor to address the occasional hits from zombies. So I guess it's no wonder why we kick around the water debate so much. We have wildly different preferences that completely skew what is optimal. EDIT: Let me add that I like a mobile combatant play style, so run-and-gun, etc. I don't need a horde base to survive a horde. A horde base just lets me earn more experience. I'll use a horde base in the late game. This means I have no reason to mine and build anything significant until late game. I can leave my workstations and chests on an empty lot if I want -- though I usually take over something like a trailer.

Playing with water from a water source, I don't ever really grab more than 10 water. There's two things at play here. Primarily, I don't need 100 water sitting in a chest. Making 100 water to sit in a chest is a waste of effort, both in the 100 clicks and waiting on the animation, but also in preparation time and fuel. I need about 10 for making drinks and maybe some other crafting, and I've probably already got 5 murky water from looting POIs. When a lake is a viable water source, I build near the lake. It stores the water. Second, I only let murky water stack to 10 so that it is like all of the other liquids, unless I were (for some reason) making a dedicated water run for some large project, I probably don't have the space in inventory for more than a couple of stacks.

I can't tell if you're speculating somebody might think completing multiple quests in a day is exploitive, or asserting that completing multiple quests in a day is exploitive. I could see where somebody might suggest that doing a fetch quest and focusing solely on getting the quest bag as soon as possible, might be exploiting the quest to earn Dukes and Quest Rewards (bike, workstations) faster, but in doing so they are likely skipping loot that would sell for Dukes. Ultimately, I don't know how I feel about that. "Grab the bag and go" seems kind of okay to me, though I don't do that because I count on loot to equip me, not the trader.

I was trying to envision what long-term water scarcity goals might have been. Limiting duct tape is what I hear other players talk about, but I didn't know if that was TFP's goal. If you say there's not a long-term scarcity goal, then nobody is trying to limit duct tape, or at least not trying to use water to limit it. I like to think I understood you, but I do seem to misunderstand people from time to time. I think I see, but you tell me... You craft Dew Collectors and are satisfied as you have built your base. Each day you harvest Potable Water. Each Day I harvest some Murky Water from a water source. I craft Potable Water at a Camp Fire and am satisfied. The comparison seems equal, but ultimately a matter of taste. I don't see harvesting Murky Water from a water source as an equivalent of using the creative menu. I see it as an equivalent to harvesting clay. You're limiting yourself to 1 quest per day. That is the significant difference. You're earning Dukes at 1/2 to 1/3 my rate. Do you stay in your base at night? If so, that's another difference. Once I've made a couple of padded armor pieces, I'll be out at night hunting, foraging, and maybe doing a quest to turn in when the trader opens. (The buried supplies quests are great at night in the early days.) I'd love to know what you'd consider exploitive. I don't think I'm doing anything exploitive. I'm assuming different spending priorities are at play here too. In the early game, I'll spend my Dukes on filters for Dew Collectors (Vanilla) or save them (Modded). I craft or loot everything I use. I'll have a bicycle from completing tier 1 quests around day 3 or 4. Yeh, I don't miss the empty jars. Water sources just give me a jar of murky water instead of drinking from the water source. If I want 10 jars of murky water, I have to spend 30 seconds or so collecting them. My murky water stack size is 10, so I don't tend to haul back 100 jars or anything. There's a difference when it comes to traveling. When traveling in Vanilla, I need to stock up on water and carry it. That takes planning and that's cool. I like planning. When traveling with my Mod, I carry a cooking pot and grill. I can hunt and gather water as I travel. Living off the land in that way is cool too and I find that appealing. The inventory hit is about the same. Both vanilla and the modded approaches are fine to me. Another difference is variety in base locations. In Vanilla I'll be near a trader as the Dew Collectors provide water wherever I place them. In Modded, I'll be near a water source, with a water source near a trader being a bonus.

Okay, so I'm back to where I was. There are no TFP long-term goals for water scarcity, so infinite water is irrelevant. Duct tape doesn't matter, or any other recipe, if I understand you correctly. In Vanilla, water scarcity is solved on day 2-3 with maybe around 1 day of "drink murky water temptation" because the game starts you with 2 fresh water. In my Modded game, water scarcity is solved day 1-2 with around 1 day of "drink murky water temptation" because you don't start with any water. Neither presents more than a day of struggle or progression, unless you're a new player and need time to figure out recipes and understand the game. Water scarcity really puts them into an interesting bind. But I'm into survival, so I prioritize food and water. You suggest it takes a week to solve water scarcity, so you're priorities are elsewhere. You must not buy a cooking pot before all else. I assume we're both doing quests, as that's how I'd find/afford a cooking pot. Quests are dropping murky water, which I'll be purifying. Are you just drinking murky water for a week until you get a bicycle, or something? I think we're playing the same length days (60 minutes). Also, this infinite murky water still commits you to spending time purifying it plus the fuel and the resulting heat. By comparison, the Dew Collectors represent only an initial challenge to afford a filter and a source of heat. You effectively get infinite water once you have some number of Dew Collectors. For me, that number was around 3-4. Honestly, I see very little difference. For Dew Collectors, I harvest them daily (early game) or when I harvest the farm (late game) and put it in inventory (base or personal). They're constantly generating heat, which I like, but rarely get to enjoy because I don't tend to hang out at base. For Murky Lake water, I harvest 10 water when I need it. Bring it back and put it on the camp fire with 6 wood. It will be waiting on me later. They're only generating heat when the fire is burning, which is something like 5 minutes. This is why it doesn't matter to me if I play Vanilla or with Mods. The end effect is the same. It's just a matter of how you go about it in-game. The modded approach makes more sense to me, but the fun is the same.

You're correct in that my mod doesn't create long-term scarcity. I'm not sure how everyone else plays, but Dew Collectors didn't bring me long-term scarcity either. Water was effectively infinite when I played strictly Vanilla with Dew Collectors. Of course everyone plays differently, but I was overflowing with water at around the 3-4 Dew Collector point. I'm not sure which recipes constitute "all demands." Because of that, I'm not really sure what the long-term scarcity is supposed to be. I see a lot of people complain about mass producing duct tape. I'm not that player. I usually have spare duct tape after the first week of play and needing to make 5-10 more of it wouldn't be a challenge with either water system. I have no doubts my goals differ from TFP's goals. I'm happy to think more about it if perhaps you could tell me what recipe is supposed to be scarce in the middle to late game? You might recall back in A20 when the water system was announced, I pushed back hard -- probably too hard. (Sorry.) These days I'm not pushing, just observing and discussing. Once I got to play A21 with the new system I realized the new system worked -- was playable -- but it still rubs me the wrong way. I'm completely cool with a local mod to fix it.

Having played both vanilla and with a home-grown mod to allow me to retrieve water from water sources, I don't think you have to complicate water processing unless you want to drag out the water shortage longer for both vanilla and mod'd games. With Vanilla, the first day water shortage is offset by the two bottles of water that you start with in-game. The "drink murky water temptation" period experienced by players lasts another day. Around that time they bring water production online with a Dew Collector and/or a cooking pot that they can now (thankfully) buy at a trader if they haven't found one. The end result is possibly a 1-day period when you might drink murky water on Day 2. Alternatively, I remove the two bottles of water (and the can of chili) that you start with on Day 1. Now the "drink murky water temptation" period starts on day 1 and it lasts until you get a cooking pot and/or a Dew Collector. With my mod, I can carry murky water away from a water source, but it is still murky water. You generally get stable sometime in Day 2 when you get a cooking pot. The end result is a 1-day period when you might drink murky water on Day 1. I suspect the effects of removing the two bottles of water on new players would be frustrating. They don't really know what resources they need and if they don't start with water they may not know what they need. I could see a game option for "New Start" or "Experienced Start" that changed the starting gear, but that is also just an easy modlet. I acknowledge there are long term differences related to other recipes and the production of heat that I have not evaluates. As a person who generally welcomes heat (because it brings me experience), I still tend to make Dew Collectors even though I build near water sources.

My apologies if I'm late to detect the theme. I can certainly agree the spirit of the game is best enjoyed by trying to enjoy the weirdness and inconsistencies.

Very true. Well, we got rid of the VOIP phones a couple of years ago, and I do still see them around campus, but they're pretty rare. I can still find a phone booth too in the dorms, but there's no phone in them. And you're right, where are the mobile phones? One the POI creators made a COW (Cell on Wheels) that can be found at one of the newer POIs and there are cell towers, but no cell phones.

Yes. Well I also notice they're missing in real life. If I want to see an office phone I have to go to our surplus department. (My computer is the telephone now.) They've still got a box of 50 or so. I haven't seen a phone booth in maybe as many as 10 years. (Thanks to cellphones.)

I know it seems absurd, but snakes and dogs do climb ladders. YouTube has numerous videos of dogs climbing ladders and videos of snakes climbing walls. If there's a complaint, it should be how fast they climb. But then search for "dog wall jump" and see them basically running up walls. Very impressive.

I assume zombies don't chase rabbits and chickens because the zombie can't move fast enough to catch them. I mean, the zombies are happy to each rabbits and chickens when they're dead. I'd like to think zombies would eat rabbits and chickens in traps, living or dead. It is sometimes a fun diversion to take a sniper rifle to some elevated position, shoot a rabbit, and then shoot any zombie that goes for the corpse. In that vein, an animal trap would make for a nice xp generator, a bit more chill than lighting a dozen camp fires and attracting screamers. Yes, I agree with this.

Yes, linked servers would have to share some data store, cloud, file server, a database server, or something. While you could develop a scheme to transmit character files and endure some loading screen, the "latest copy" of your character would be only on one server and that would get messy pretty quickly. Solo games with multiple maps would be in good shape.

Beyond the RWG issues, the CP has 10x the number of POIs that I have and 2x the number of POIs that TFP has. At the CP's scale I'd probably be trying to do custom settlements too. Or, who am I kidding? At CP's scale I'd crumple, being unable to get everything done.

I agree it would be a neat feature and there would be a variety of possible ways to do it. I kind of like the notion of linking maps together (solo play) or linking servers together with some kind of gateway (multiplayer). Moving a character between games is already possible today with manual effort. You can copy your character over to other saved games. Just know that (1) you'll only have what is in your inventory, and (2) your starting location will be the X,Z location you were at on the previous map.