3 hours ago, Roland said:
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.
I feel like you and Meganoth have fed that assumption. I am not interested in getting into a @%$#ing match over it and I'm not going to go back and cite posts where he said/she said, but right or wrong, that is where I got that assumption.
@zztong beat me to a pretty solid explanation again, so I won't rehash it all.
My own point in my last post still stands. It is not a struggle, as I iterated what was done is ineffective in making it a struggle, so it is good if you say that is not what TFP intended, because it doesn't work.
I agree that water more or less occupies my time about the right amount for gameplay (which comes above all else). It is not my over-riding concern, but it is a concern. The water pot is a first day priority, even if I find a helmet water purifier in my first POI. I am going to need glue and I am not going to sit next to the water source all day. I feel I average around 10 jars of murky water per POI, which is plenty to keep hydrated with a filter, but I'd rather drink a more efficient beverage and have more water for glue & stew.
So if we could magically scoop jars of murky water out of a pond, boil snow (something else we used to be able to do that I feel we should still be able to do) or even get buckets full of water and boil them, I don't feel like it would really change any of the above. The only difference it would make to my playstyle would be that I probably would just drink murky water all the time once I got a purifier. The water purifier might be OP, but it is hardly game-breaking. I would not be heartbroken if it were removed. It would make goldenrod tea actually useful, since one could drink a bunch of murky water to load up and then cure their dysentery.
I would probably make more glue as well as foods that require water, but once again, regardless there still comes a point where I stop making glue and water is not the bottleneck on cooking so it doesn't make a lot of difference.
So why am I making a big deal out of something that doesn't make a lot of difference to me? Maybe because it seems like a better experience to provide a few more options. and it doesn't go against what seems to have become the focus of the argument. A lot of the systems in the game that I don't particularly care for the make or break would just be a bit of tweaking and re-balancing. I still feels like there is too much knee-jerk adding and removing things instead of putting time into tuning them.
@Rotor It's because you put in an external link. It seems to be a new(ish) forum feature.