Glass Jars Question, A21

[Riamus]

You still collect water and boil it.  It just isn't collected at a water source like a lake or river.  It isn't meant to be realistic but to help water be more of a challenge rather than having all you'll ever need on day 1.  Considering you can drink right from the water source now, hydration isn't really changed.  It just isn't boiled if you drink it directly.  Water for drinking and cooking is not really a problem past the first day or two.  The only reason there is any issue is for people who use a lot of duct tape.

 

As far as the containers, I'm glad they are gone.  They were pointless, imo.  Even if you wanted the old method, there wasn't any need for having empty jars.  It could have easily been done without them.

[Cosian]

39 minutes ago, Riamus said:

You still collect water and boil it.  It just isn't collected at a water source like a lake or river.  It isn't meant to be realistic but to help water be more of a challenge rather than having all you'll ever need on day 1.  Considering you can drink right from the water source now, hydration isn't really changed.  It just isn't boiled if you drink it directly.  Water for drinking and cooking is not really a problem past the first day or two.  The only reason there is any issue is for people who use a lot of duct tape.

 

As far as the containers, I'm glad they are gone.  They were pointless, imo.  Even if you wanted the old method, there wasn't any need for having empty jars.  It could have easily been done without them.

So what happens after the first day or two that makes not a problem?

[Vaeliorin]

23 minutes ago, Cosian said:

So what happens after the first day or two that makes not a problem?

You get several dew collectors and lots of murky water from looting.

 

Or you're like me this playthrough and have 4 water purifier mods by day 7....

Edited June 20, 2023 by Vaeliorin (see edit history)

[Riamus]

3 hours ago, Cosian said:

So what happens after the first day or two that makes not a problem?

As Vaeliorin said, you'll have dew collectors if you need them and you'll find plenty of murky water and other drinks.  Now, if you are playing 8 players and not everyone wants to try and find water, it might take longer to get in a good place with water.  But it is pretty easy at 1-2 people.  For larger groups where some don't want to loot, if they are all willing to sacrifice the first 2-3 days for looting in order to get water in a good place for them, then they should be fine playing the rest of the game without everyone looting.

[Roland]

4 hours ago, Cosian said:

Part of any survival game is obtaining purified water. 

 

Not necessarily. There is a wide spectrum of hydration survival and how it is represented across many different survival games. There are even survival games where thirst isn't differentiated from food at all. 7 Days to Die has no obligation to be just like any or even every survival game out there. The developers of some games just ignore water survival altogether. Other developers of other games put tons of detail into water survival to the point that it is basically a sim for hydrating the body. 7 Days to Die has chosen to make some aspects of hydration an abstraction. 

 

You don't have to like it but please just know that "any survival game" is not some bible for how particular survival games must depict thirst and drinking. There is a lot of wiggle room based on all the different ways different games choose to do it.

[Razorpony]

You can sit there and say that the hydration mechanic isn't meant to be realistic but is it meant to be absurd? Because that's where we're at right now. I can go out into the desert with a shovel and a pick and dig up oil shale, bring it back to my base, run it through a redneck refinery, and have gasoline pure enough to run a truck or motorcycle. What I can't figure out how to do is walk out the door and down to the lake to fill up a bottle. If the water is from a toilet? No problem. Maybe I just need to make the lake into a giant toilet. 

 

[Gideon]

You eat the jar when you drink the water in it. It is then exuded through your sweat glands and evaporates.

The jars condense and reassemble in the dew collectors. It's not just water vapor they collect, but also jar vapor.

Conservation of mass.

[BFT2020]

16 hours ago, Cosian said:

I see a lot of folks really trying to be forthcoming here and cave to the devs saying well we will try to keep an open mind and try it.  That said, it just doesn't make any sense.  Your trying to sell it as a quality of life thing because you don't have to deal with containers??  It just does not make logical sense that you drink something out of a jar and then you cannot fill the jar back up.  Part of any survival game is obtaining purified water.  But here you cannot collect water and boil it. Hmmmm.  Look, there are a plethora of settings people can use if they want to make their game more challenging all ready.  Why mess with this realistic approach to hydrating yourself.  It's like an anti-quality of life thing.

 

Let me be clear .... I don't like it ...

 

I embraced it when it was announced during A21 development that I modded out glass jars (and tin cans) from A20 just to experience it before hand.  Haven't miss them since.

 

Why does logic only apply to glass jars but nobody had an issue with magical gas cans or oil bottles?  Where did all those plates and bowls go after we eat our food and where are they when we make them?

 

The thing is, you can make this game as complex or simple as you want through modding.  You can make it as realistically possible if you want to.

 

But if we are going to argue that something is not logical or realistic, then shouldn't it apply across the board?  How many people really want to plant corn seeds in Spring in game and then turn around and harvest it in the Fall? 

[Cosian]

6 hours ago, BFT2020 said:

 

I embraced it when it was announced during A21 development that I modded out glass jars (and tin cans) from A20 just to experience it before hand.  Haven't miss them since.

 

Why does logic only apply to glass jars but nobody had an issue with magical gas cans or oil bottles?  Where did all those plates and bowls go after we eat our food and where are they when we make them?

 

The thing is, you can make this game as complex or simple as you want through modding.  You can make it as realistically possible if you want to.

 

But if we are going to argue that something is not logical or realistic, then shouldn't it apply across the board?  How many people really want to plant corn seeds in Spring in game and then turn around and harvest it in the Fall? 

Well its really not the same is it?  There isn't gas or oil laying around in pools to fill up a gas can so its really not an apples to apples comparison.  Really no purpose for lakes and rivers now.  Anyway, I have accepted the current condition but my jury is still out and whether it made the game better.  Probably more important to be near a town than a lake or river.  Finally I am getting plenty of murky in the nearby town and  I guess if you think you are not getting enough water you can mod or set the respawn days down.  It's all good. 

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, Cosian said:

Well its really not the same is it?  There isn't gas or oil laying around in pools to fill up a gas can so its really not an apples to apples comparison.  

Not oil but you collected gas from cars and gas barrels and gas pumps.  What did you put it into?  When you emptied all of these, where did the containers go?  People are really only complaining because it is harder to get enough water for mass producing glue.  I'd be willing to bet that at least 90% of the people upset over glass jars being gone are those who mass produce glue.  You also don't see these same people complaining about empty cans being gone.  Very good indication why they are complaining and it isn't due to realism.

 

Still, I'm glad you're finding enough water now.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Riamus (see edit history)

[Survior]

6 hours ago, Riamus said:

Not oil but you collected gas from cars and gas barrels and gas pumps.  What did you put it into?  When you emptied all of these, where did the containers go?  People are really only complaining because it is harder to get enough water for mass producing glue.  I'd be willing to bet that at least 90% of the people upset over glass jars being gone are those who mass produce glue.  You also don't see these same people complaining about empty cans being gone.  Very good indication why they are complaining and it isn't due to realism.

 

Still, I'm glad you're finding enough water now.

 

It really  has very little to "meh glue" it has everything to do with dumbing down an already dumb system. The new system isn't harder it's just worse.

 

 

Edited June 21, 2023 by Survior (see edit history)

[Riamus]

20 minutes ago, Survior said:

It really  has very little to "meh glue" it has everything to do with dumbing down an already dumb system. The new system isn't harder it's just worse.

If that's true, where are the complaints about the missing empty cans?

 

I don't disagree necessarily with saying it's dumbing it down but that's not why people are really complaining or they'd complain about the cans as well.  And they'd have been complaining about the other items that don't have empties all along.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Riamus (see edit history)

[Survior]

I personally never used cans very much in vanilla so it's not even on my mind.

[RipClaw]

1 hour ago, Riamus said:

If that's true, where are the complaints about the missing empty cans?

 

I don't disagree necessarily with saying it's dumbing it down but that's not why people are really complaining or they'd complain about the cans as well.  And they'd have been complaining about the other items that don't have empties all along.

Empty cans were only needed in the recipe for oil. There is no model for an empty cans and one did not have this interaction where one would have filled the cans with oil from e.g. an oil tank.

 

Therefore, it is understandable that the empty jars are more prominent in the discussion. We had a refilling animation / drinking animation and when you threw an empty glass from the inventory there was really a jar on the floor and not a bag. In that sense, the jars were much more real.

 

In the Undead Legacy Mod, the concept of empty containers has been expanded. To collect gas from a gas pump or a gas barrel, you need an empty jerry can. And to pick up water at a tap, shower head or hydrant, you need an empty jar or a empty plastic bottle. In addition, in many cases the empty containers are returned when you craft something.

To balance this, empty containers can only be crafted in level 3 or 4 workstations which you will not get until very late in the game.

 

 

[RipClaw]

8 hours ago, Riamus said:

People are really only complaining because it is harder to get enough water for mass producing glue.  I'd be willing to bet that at least 90% of the people upset over glass jars being gone are those who mass produce glue. 

Well, one of the goals of the Learn by Reading system was to get people to craft much of their gear not just once but several times. And when you do that you need a lot of duct tape and glue. Who would have thought?

 

I know that the developers increased the amount of glue and duct tape you can find in loot and the trader sells both but I still have a shortage of glue. And this isn't even a play-through  where I need duct tape for ammo like the exploding crossbow bolts. At the moment I have 6 dew collectors and I use most of my water to produce glue.

 

[Survior]

30 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

Well, one of the goals of the Learn by Reading system was to get people to craft much of their gear not just once but several times. And when you do that you need a lot of duct tape and glue. Who would have thought?

 

I know that the developers increased the amount of glue and duct tape you can find in loot and the trader sells both but I still have a shortage of glue. And this isn't even a play-through  where I need duct tape for ammo like the exploding crossbow bolts. At the moment I have 6 dew collectors and I use most of my water to produce glue.

 

 

I'm glad you brought that up. The idea that somehow crafting the same item, or slightly upgraded item, with 3 graphics total per type, for example spears and doing it several times and thinking that is fun is beyond me, that leads into the laughable balance that is, mod slots/tier levels for upgrading at all, where crafting an iron item is in every sense of the word a downgrade from the stone version  that does less damage, has less mod slots and is vastly more expensive to repair. Rinse and repeat for steel.

 

It took a year and a half to come up with this absolutely brilliant plan!

Edited June 21, 2023 by Survior (see edit history)

[RipClaw]

32 minutes ago, Survior said:

I'm glad you brought that up. The idea that somehow crafting the same item, or slightly upgraded item, with 3 graphics total per type, for example spears and doing it several times and thinking that is fun is beyond me, that leads into the laughable balance that is, mod slots/tier levels for upgrading at all, where crafting an iron item is in every sense of the word a downgrade from the stone version  that does less damage, has less mod slots and is vastly more expensive to repair. Rinse and repeat for steel.

I have switched to only crafting something for the new technology tier when I can craft at least at quality level 3 in it. Going from quality level 5 to 1 does not work because the stats overlap. And of course a Q3 item has 2 mod slots instead of just one. Then I usually craft the item one more time when I reach Q5.

 

The only exception so far is that I made a Q1 M60 that has lower stats than my Q5 Assault Rifle but it can hold 120 rounds of ammo with the drum magazine, which is useful for a T5 boss fight.

 

In some cases I managed to craft only Q5 items for each technology tier like with the armor.

Edited June 21, 2023 by RipClaw (see edit history)

[zztong]

5 hours ago, Riamus said:

If that's true, where are the complaints about the missing empty cans?

 

Sure, some people are complaining about missing jars. They've not fixed their frustration in the correct place, so they complain about missing empty jars. It's the obvious target. I don't think a love affair with empty jars is the real issue. So, yeh, pointing out the lack of other containers seems like a convincing argument -- and it is -- just not in response to the real complaint.

 

I think what some miss is the ability to carry water away from a water source. Not only is it a fundamental human thing, but it puts the player in the driver's seat (as opposed to a loot table) and rewards their planning. Make the game such that when you point at a water source and click E you get murky water and that would be resolved without empty jars.

 

However, free murky water on demand (if you're standing by a pond, river, or ditch) runs contrary to the early game's water scarcity goal. I think few oppose this goal. The real trick would be how to do both. I think there are options and I'd happily talk of them (again) if I had any sense it might be useful.

Edited June 21, 2023 by zztong (see edit history)

[meganoth]

3 hours ago, RipClaw said:

I have switched to only crafting something for the new technology tier when I can craft at least at quality level 3 in it. Going from quality level 5 to 1 does not work because the stats overlap. And of course a Q3 item has 2 mod slots instead of just one. Then I usually craft the item one more time when I reach Q5.

 

The only exception so far is that I made a Q1 M60 that has lower stats than my Q5 Assault Rifle but it can hold 120 rounds of ammo with the drum magazine, which is useful for a T5 boss fight.

 

In some cases I managed to craft only Q5 items for each technology tier like with the armor.

 

The overlap between tiers is a rather obvious fault. And I remember someone from TFP saying they would remove any overlap.

I expect this to be corrected eventually, maybe without someone reminding TFP of it, maybe only after a reminder that there is something they forgot.

 

[RipClaw]

20 minutes ago, meganoth said:

The overlap between tiers is a rather obvious fault. And I remember someone from TFP saying they would remove any overlap.

I am not quite sure if this referred to the overlap between quality levels or if it meant the overlap between technology levels.

 

But I haven't seen anyone go from Q5 stone to Q1 iron, for example. They has always waited until they could make at least Q3 iron items, if only because of the mod slots.

 

[OccamsShavingCream]

Having played a21 a while, I'm not a fan of the glass jar change. It does improve the early survival aspect, which is good, but the implementation (removing the jars) causes other problems, at least in my view.

 

Mostly, it just seems bizarre that we can't carry water from a water source and purify it. That's been basic human behavior since the dawn of time. The analogy with gas cans is flawed in my view, because that's just a system that was itself messy: the correct fix for that would have been (and this would have been a gameplay improvement I think) to require finding or crafting a gas can to carry it around in, and maybe even a siphon or hose to collect it from gasoline sources.

 

Aside from how it feels to not be able to collect water or to just have jars and bottles wink out of existence as soon as they're emptied, another issue is that this change ties players to the traders and quest system even more.  You have to access a trader to get a water filter, now. This won't be a problem for new players, but a lot of us have played this game enough that we change our gameplay in order to keep it a challenge.  Steam's claiming I've got over 8,600 hundred hours in (which is probably a Steam bug, those numbers aren't all that reliable, but I'm sure it's not too far off.) I actually prefer to play without using traders at all just to jack up the difficulty (insane, low loot percent, all those already set) but that's not really an option in this build. Making the filters available via dismantling something or by looting would sort that issue out in my view.

 

The change I would have preferred to have seen would have been to remove the option to craft jars, and set the max stack size to three (or so.) The most expensive resource in the game is cargo space, and water is heavy, so that would limit how much a player carries around or stockpiles.

 

Alternatively, allow players to carry water in unstacked cooking pots, which could then be boiled to produce drinkable water.  This would at least reduce the conceptual issues with not being able to carry it around.

 

 

[Vaeliorin]

10 minutes ago, OccamsShavingCream said:

Making the filters available via dismantling something or by looting would sort that issue out in my view.

Supposedly you can get them very rarely from destroyed dew collectors, but in 60-70 hours in A21, I've yet to see a destroyed dew collector.

[Riamus]

9 hours ago, RipClaw said:

Well, one of the goals of the Learn by Reading system was to get people to craft much of their gear not just once but several times. And when you do that you need a lot of duct tape and glue. Who would have thought?

 

I know that the developers increased the amount of glue and duct tape you can find in loot and the trader sells both but I still have a shortage of glue. And this isn't even a play-through  where I need duct tape for ammo like the exploding crossbow bolts. At the moment I have 6 dew collectors and I use most of my water to produce glue.

 

And that's the thing... if you are concerned about glue, then it isn't really empty jars that you're upset about.  It's the difficulty making enough glue.  That is a balancing issue and not really an issue with the removal of empty jars.  Sure, the jars made it possible to make the glue you wanted without any real effort but that's also not balanced.  They basically went from one end of the spectrum to the other regarding glue production.  As far as hydration, this is a better solution, imo.  For glue, they need to work out a balance that makes it possible to make glue more easily.  Perhaps even making it so 1 water = 5 glue.  That would not affect hydration but would help with glue production.  I am not saying that is the best solution but that it is a solution and does not require tons of empty glass jars or making water simplistic.

 

8 hours ago, Survior said:

 

I'm glad you brought that up. The idea that somehow crafting the same item, or slightly upgraded item, with 3 graphics total per type, for example spears and doing it several times and thinking that is fun is beyond me, that leads into the laughable balance that is, mod slots/tier levels for upgrading at all, where crafting an iron item is in every sense of the word a downgrade from the stone version  that does less damage, has less mod slots and is vastly more expensive to repair. Rinse and repeat for steel.

 

It took a year and a half to come up with this absolutely brilliant plan!

Well, the overlap was already there.  It isn't new in A21.  That being said, it does need to be corrected because there isn't any value in making lower tier items.  I've even given up on tier 3 or 4 now and only upgrade when I can do quality level 5.  There just isn't any reason to bother with the lower quality levels.  About the only things I'll make lower quality levels of are stone items since they are cheap enough to make and are always an upgrade, or the nail gun.  No reason to make a level 5 nail gun.  Level 1 works just as well for far less resources.

 

5 hours ago, zztong said:

I think what some miss is the ability to carry water away from a water source. Not only is it a fundamental human thing, but it puts the player in the driver's seat (as opposed to a loot table) and rewards their planning. Make the game such that when you point at a water source and click E you get murky water and that would be resolved without empty jars.

 

However, free murky water on demand (if you're standing by a pond, river, or ditch) runs contrary to the early game's water scarcity goal. I think few oppose this goal. The real trick would be how to do both. I think there are options and I'd happily talk of them (again) if I had any sense it might be useful.

I agree that it isn't realistic.  I even posted that before A21 when they announced the water changes.  It doesn't make sense that you can't carry water back to your base to boil.  At the same time, I feel like the overabundance of water when you allow this defeats any reason to include hydration in the game.  Because of that, I am fine with removing the option to carry water.  The game doesn't have to be realistic if there is a gameplay reason for doing something, imo.  It would be great if some compromise could be made that would allow for both water scarcity and carrying water.  I don't know that they want to change things, though.  So you're probably right thinking it might not be useful to rehash the ideas, unfortunately.

 

1 hour ago, Vaeliorin said:

Supposedly you can get them very rarely from destroyed dew collectors, but in 60-70 hours in A21, I've yet to see a destroyed dew collector.

I've seen them a few times.  Try going to some survivor stations and you'll probably find some.  I think that's where I usually found them.  I think I found one in a house's basement as well, though I may not be remembering that correctly.  I wasn't really trying to keep track of them.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Riamus (see edit history)

[RipClaw]

22 minutes ago, Riamus said:

And that's the thing... if you are concerned about glue, then it isn't really empty jars that you're upset about.  It's the difficulty making enough glue.  That is a balancing issue and not really an issue with the removal of empty jars.  Sure, the jars made it possible to make the glue you wanted without any real effort but that's also not balanced.  They basically went from one end of the spectrum to the other regarding glue production.  As far as hydration, this is a better solution, imo.  For glue, they need to work out a balance that makes it possible to make glue more easily.  Perhaps even making it so 1 water = 5 glue.  That would not affect hydration but would help with glue production.  I am not saying that is the best solution but that it is a solution and does not require tons of empty glass jars or making water simplistic.

I'm not upset that they removed the jars. I just wanted to point out that changes to the game in general has led to a higher demand for glue and that has nothing to do with mass production. Mass production was in A20 when I played with exploding crossbow bolts. I used 100 pieces of duct tape per week for that alone. 
 

There are only two things that bug me. One is that only 3 jars of water fit in a dew collector, so you have to empty them daily, and the other is that the Fun Pimps haven't increased the stack size of clean water.
 

[Kothre]

I am glad that empty jars are gone, because they were annoying inventory clutter. But I really don't like how hard it is to get a steady supply of water now, especially as you scale up the amount of players in your party. You will need to make an entire farm of these ridiculous dew collectors (which of course you can't even craft without uncraftable water filters) to get a whopping 3 waters at a time. And you'd better be on top of constantly collecting the water out of them or they won't collect water anymore! This is not a fun addition to the game. At all. It feels like we're moisture farmers on Arrakis now. And how are we supposed to do any kind of mass production in the late game with this pathetic amount of water income? Glue was already a bottleneck for crafting, and now the issue is 100x worse. I really don't understand Fun Pimps sometimes. They're so dead set on dragging out the tedious parts of the early game instead of adding more endgame challenges.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm actually okay with the early parts of the game being gated by the survival challenge (i.e., food and water shortages), but the collection of food and water shouldn't be a tedious process throughout the entire game. It should be a timed gating issue like getting a crucible to make steel production. That way, later in the game, you can have fun doing the actual fun part of the game, which is killing zombies and building. It would be a much better solution to have some higher tech solution that removes the unfun burden of collecting water from 100 dew collectors. Let us build an automated water filtration system that connects to a river or something, I don't know. Just do something that's more fun than these dew collectors, please. Give us a higher tech solution; dew collectors should be the tier 1 way of obtaining water, if anything.