What was the point of the water change?

[zombieron]

Yukka smoothies and bacon and eggs is how real survivors start the day.

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, Doctor3D said:

I think still allowing the character to harvest the bodies of water 'somehow' - would at least be a comfortable middle ground.  Maybe water pumps you can put on the water blocks?

 

That's the same system (workstation collecting water) At least then, it wouldn't seem like the water is mostly just useless data on the map.  I mean you can of course drink it with your hands but that's about all it is good for now. The lakes of water on the map don't have much utility beyond scooping and drinking it dirty with your hands.  

 

The dew collector could be an easier item to build and start with - but slower. Then water pump would be more of an end game item. 

 

Still not perfect - I'd just rather have the water jars and dip them in the pools of water like the most basic of human concepts, but I'd be less disappointed if it at  least tiered out the water collection in different ways through workstations like pumps to take advantage of actual bodies of water just sitting there. 

 

Either way, I can live with the change as it is. Don't like it at all - but it's not a game-breaker. 

I love this idea.  Add it after chem station, have it take a lot of forged steel, mechanical parts and electrical parts.  Maybe make it take a lot of springs since you can't craft those, so you have to plan ahead if you want multiple of you are concerned about it being too easy.  It should produce a decent amount of water a day, being a mid to end game item.  Let it generate a ton of heat if you want.  This could make standing water feel useful and not just something to look at.  Have it require regular repairs as well if your want. Whatever it would take to get it in the game.

 

You should create a new post in Pimp Dreams so it is more visible.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Riamus (see edit history)

[myrkana]

Are looting and the dew collector the only ways to get water now? I found a few bottles in loot, and I see the dew collector in the workbench section.

[Riamus]

6 minutes ago, myrkana said:

Are looting and the dew collector the only ways to get water now? I found a few bottles in loot, and I see the dew collector in the workbench section.

Pretty much.  You can drink water at the source but otherwise it's quest, loot, purchase, or dew collector.

[myrkana]

10 minutes ago, Riamus said:

Pretty much.  You can drink water at the source but otherwise it's quest, loot, purchase, or dew collector.

thanks  wanted to make sure I wasnt missing something. I havent paid much attention to the development, just checked in occasionally. I didnt even realise a21 was out until I happened to open steam today xD

[Darklegend222]

The water system honestly sucks a lot. Everything else in this update was great. Wonderful optimizations, solid 120fps at ultra settings. Shooting through doors, being able to see how much you got when harvesting and total count, being able to see the POI and biome tier, and finally the better RWG changes.

 

But water, it's so stupid. I've only ever gotten water from the trader quests and vending machines. Everywhere else it's all murky water. You can't even put the water in a jar either, but you EAT the jar you just drank water out of? Someone said something a while back: "Technically you always have jars on you 24/7 when you drink from lakes and store it there", but if that were true, then surely I could just pick the water up with my hands and carry it to my campfires cooking pot. OR BETTER YET, I could just retrieve lake water WITH the cooking pot, now that's an idea!!

 

The changes to water are not only terribly unbalanced, they also ruin multiplayer badly. If I buy the water from a trader, neither can my friends, it makes multiplayer so much more tedious for no reason. Sure you can get that chance to receive 10 water from a trader quest, but is that REALLY reliable? Especially with the chance of spawning 1-2km from a trader at the beginning.

Water is my 2nd problem with the latest update, the other being that this alpha was rushed to stable because of the "summer sale". Other than those TWO things, the game has been really well polished and well designed overall!

[minisith]

Check toilets.  Every house has one or two and apartments has many.   If you take the right pills you can drink from any open water source, river/lake/ditches, with nothing in your hands without worrying about dysentery.  Take the pills before drinking the dirty water.  It is a survival game.

[minisith]

13 hours ago, Doctor3D said:

I think still allowing the character to harvest the bodies of water 'somehow' - would at least be a comfortable middle ground.  Maybe water pumps you can put on the water blocks?

 

That's the same system (workstation collecting water) At least then, it wouldn't seem like the water is mostly just useless data on the map.  I mean you can of course drink it with your hands but that's about all it is good for now. The lakes of water on the map don't have much utility beyond scooping and drinking it dirty with your hands.  

 

The dew collector could be an easier item to build and start with - but slower. Then water pump would be more of an end game item. 

 

Still not perfect - I'd just rather have the water jars and dip them in the pools of water like the most basic of human concepts, but I'd be less disappointed if it at  least tiered out the water collection in different ways through workstations like pumps to take advantage of actual bodies of water just sitting there. 

 

Either way, I can live with the change as it is. Don't like it at all - but it's not a game-breaker. 

I mean they still have the metal bucket in game.  Grab some water and make yourself a fountain.  Drink it with nothing in your hands.   They should add this in the in game Journal since I notice a lot of players seems to not know this....

[AllTheGoodNamesAreInUse]

1 hour ago, minisith said:

I mean they still have the metal bucket in game.  Grab some water and make yourself a fountain.  Drink it with nothing in your hands.

 

That helps nothing with the water needed for crafting. Water needed for crafting is 10x the problem than drinking water is.

[Old Crow]

14 hours ago, Roland said:

 

 I felt disappointed both times I found the helmet water filter and simply sold them for money since I wanted to play the water survival gameplay because I think it's fun.

 

Sounds more like you just enjoy crapping your pants from dysentery lol. You know that using a water filter mod would be considered part of water survival gameplay, right?

Sometimes I feel like you make up scenarios like this just to be contradictory and try and invalidate people's points of view.

[AllTheGoodNamesAreInUse]

1 hour ago, minisith said:

It is a survival game.

 

No, it is a looting game. Survival games allow you to use containers to gather water.

[minisith]

12 minutes ago, AllTheGoodNamesAreInUse said:

 

That helps nothing with the water needed for crafting. Water needed for crafting is 10x the problem than drinking water is.

If you take pills or use the filter mod on your hat you can drink from any ground water and use the lootable water for crafting.   Why waste water jars when you can drink from the ground?    There are multiple solutions in this game unless you refuse to do something.  Then that is you.

[AllTheGoodNamesAreInUse]

Crafting. C R A F T I N G.  Not drinking.  Water for crafting. 

[minisith]

6 minutes ago, AllTheGoodNamesAreInUse said:

 

No, it is a looting game. Survival games allow you to use containers to gather water.

Yes it is both.   This game also is a tower defense and an RPG.  It is not just one thing and is not a simulator.  It is it's own game really.  But thanks for trying to debunk my advice for one thing that no one agrees with collectively.

[minisith]

5 minutes ago, AllTheGoodNamesAreInUse said:

Crafting. C R A F T I N G.  Not drinking.  Water for crafting. 

From looting,  You go loot or buy it from a trader.    L O O T ing.   Do not drink the water you are looting if you are struggling with water.  I have not struggled to do this.  I think water needs to be nerfed again. 

Do you hear me TFP????

[Survior]

39 minutes ago, minisith said:

Yes it is both.   This game also is a tower defense and an RPG.  It is not just one thing and is not a simulator.  It is it's own game really.  But thanks for trying to debunk my advice for one thing that no one agrees with collectively.

 

Maybe it should be all of those things but the devs and tryhards want it to be a simple arcade dungeon shooter and that's where they are taking it.

 

 

[Survior]

The fact that somehow the devs can justify not being able to take water from a bigger water source and either boiling it or using it for other things (glue) is a joke.

 

You can't even make glue from murky water now you have to cook it.

😆😆😆

[minisith]

That is why they call it game logic.  It is in every game.  Every game can be a joke when putting it that why.

[minisith]

35 minutes ago, Survior said:

 

Maybe it should be all of those things but the devs and tryhards want it to be a simple arcade dungeon shooter and that's where they are taking it.

 

 

Simple?   lol  This is not a simple game.  Why do you think so many players are confused.  Or maybe it is the whole early access that they are not used to playing...  I mean base building is not something that is an arcade dungeon shooter....

[Lamblaska]

Hello Guys.

I honestly think you are merging a lot of topics here. I see balance and difficult stuff, but also immersion and "reality like" points. This is kind of not productive. I would split up this way:

I) Balance and difficult are about tuning and changing parameters. For instance:
-Change the drop rate of something.
-Change the value of purchase.
-Change how long it takes to produce or how much material it needs to do so. 

In this particular case(AKA.: Dew collector) :
If dew collectors are too OP (as in, provide too much water in too quickly). You can basically make them hard to be acquired (considering the early, mid and late game). Or make them provide less water per time. 

II) Change immersion and reality like. For instance:
-Add a new game mechanic for something.

-Change/Remove a mechanic that doesn't fulfill it's purpose.
-Encourage or not something in game with rewards or in place mechanics. 

In this particular case(AKA.: Dew collectors):
If they are not immersive enough. You could add a game mechanic that would fluctuate production according to weather. This would make them less predictable and reliable. Or a feature that the filter has a lifespan (like real filters do). As they are used, they become less and less effective, taking more time to fill up the dew up to the point it provides only 1 murky water a day. You could add the possibility of craft a purifier (using sand + coal + silver + nitrate). This would add an upkeep effort to dew collectors in mid to late game. 


 

Now... a personal feedback regarding the new water mechanic:

Before:
-Honestly. Water before was irrelevant. It was easy and not immersive at the same time. You would start with a single water(with a glass) and you would basically need only a lake or a pool and a campfire to be self sufficient about water. Even with glasses and other stuff, you would basically accumulate them so easily and so quickly. And that make a lot of sense.
-Think about it, Plastic and glass bottles are literally everywhere around us and inside the game too. There are trash bins, trash bags, backpacks all around the place. The same didn't happened with most of the materials and craft in game. How did you carry sand, wood, food (yeah, no plates there), glue, and on and on. 

Now:
-Cooking pot is in deed a priority and at the same time, something once you acquire some you no longer need to worry about. That makes sense as a balance perspective because you have to focus on searching it. And also from a immersion perspective since once you have acquired a few (in house kitchens) you no longer need to worry about.
-Dew collectors are much more coherent than grabbing water around and boil it. Boil water is not as the same as filter it. Imagine how much dirty, junk, and diseases would be in a pool. Or in a river that zombies swim inside. From a immersion perspective, do make a lot of sense IMO. In a balance perspective, I still think it´s better than before. But still require improvement (a lot). 
-Not worry about containers such as glasses do make a lot of sense to me. From a balance and difficult perspective looks like something extremely complex to manage variables. For a immersion that would not be felt, since it would be handling like just another craft component. This overthinking in containers would make the game less fun and would require a lot of effort to feel really immersive. This effort is better applied elsewhere. 
-I do not like the dew collector generating heat. I do understand it is a balance thing. But not a good one IMO. 

Here are a list of few suggestions for the current water system: 
1) Make dew collectors be affected by biomes and weather. This would make them less reliable and less predictable. [This is a high effort one and the last one IMO]
2) Remove Dew collector heat since they are the most passive thing possible. It's not immersive. [Low effort]
3) Use a wood burn like mechanic. Instead of wood, gas or paper. It would require water purifiers [Medium effort I think, its a already in place mechanic but it would require to be clone it and change it).
4) Water purifiers requires, as a "expendable material" that would "burn" in collector dews to be craftable. Stone, Sand, plastic, nitrate and maybe even silver could be a thing. [Low effort].
5) Add the water purifier recipe somewhere to be learn (maybe workstations, or one of those special books of survival).  [Low effort] 
6) Add water purifier to be scrapped form water filters around the map. [Low effort]


With this suggestions. I think it would be a immersive thing but also would require a upkeep effort. It would not only be build and go there once or twice a day to collect. 7dtd in mid to late game is also a time management challenge, having an upkeep would make it a tradeoff to have a lot of them around. 

What you think about these suggestions? 

[AllTheGoodNamesAreInUse]

30 minutes ago, Lamblaska said:

Stone, Sand, plastic, nitrate and maybe even silver could be a thing. [Low effort]

 

Really, I think to make that simpler (but still a cost over time) would be charcoal (or using current game materials, coal). In a post-apocalyptic situation, a charcoal filter would be the most straightforward and most common way to purify water, so make water filters craftable, simple, but a consumable. Raise the output, but have the filters degrade over time and require replacing.  Also, you should be able to purify murky water with them. That would be logical.

[Lamblaska]

Just now, AllTheGoodNamesAreInUse said:

 

Really, I think to make that simpler (but still a cost over time) would be charcoal (or using current game materials, coal). In a post-apocalyptic situation, a charcoal filter would be the most straightforward and most common way to purify water, so make water filters craftable, simple, but a consumable. Raise the output, but have the filters degrade over time and require replacing.  Also, you should be able to purify murky water with them. That would be logical.

I think it's positive with current game mechanics and how they work. This way, a suggestion already try to be drafted on how the game works somehow. I'm not sure how filters work but it would be basically a craft, with specific components. How many of each component, how long to craft it, how to acquire the schematic (if would work like a mod, a craft learned from a magazine or one of those specific books) that would dictate how to balance the difficult. 

The idea of filtering murky water is also nice. From a immersion perspective. Filtering is more immersive than just boil it. And from a balance perspective, upkeep a filtering structure would be harder than just boil the water. Something in between that would be something like. You still can boil water at the campfire. but the recipe would be like 5 murky water for a single purified water. I think that would provide a good trade off. You would be have to have enough water to cook and make drinks, but not in a scale for glue production.

What do you think? 

[madmole]

On 6/28/2023 at 9:47 PM, AtomicUs5000 said:

That's ok because we'll have learn by dying.

That's coming in A21 yet lol. There will be an option to disable it though

[AtomicUs5000]

6 minutes ago, madmole said:

That's coming in A21 yet lol. There will be an option to disable it though

I appreciate that balance, coming from a permadeath player.

[AllTheGoodNamesAreInUse]

28 minutes ago, Lamblaska said:

I think it's positive with current game mechanics and how they work. This way, a suggestion already try to be drafted on how the game works somehow. I'm not sure how filters work but it would be basically a craft, with specific components. How many of each component, how long to craft it, how to acquire the schematic (if would work like a mod, a craft learned from a magazine or one of those specific books) that would dictate how to balance the difficult. 

The idea of filtering murky water is also nice. From a immersion perspective. Filtering is more immersive than just boil it. And from a balance perspective, upkeep a filtering structure would be harder than just boil the water. Something in between that would be something like. You still can boil water at the campfire. but the recipe would be like 5 murky water for a single purified water. I think that would provide a good trade off. You would be have to have enough water to cook and make drinks, but not in a scale for glue production.

What do you think? 

 

I've always actually thought there should be a "Water Filtration Station" workstation in the game. You should be able to input murky water and output pure water (with a "crafting time" inserted because that's how it would work IRL too).  Making part of that workstation a consumable would make sense (charcoal filters are easy to make but they wear out and stop being effective over enough use).  Easily doable in-game.

 

Side note, we already made a "craftable water purifier" recipe for A21 as a mod for our group's server that includes coal as a component.  This kind of thing doesn't need to be as heavy handed as TFP seem dead-set on making it.