What was the point of the water change?

[EvilPolygons]

3 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

I never saw a bucket in loot and ignored it in crafting in the last years, sorry for my ignorance there.

 

It would make the game more difficult in the beginnning as you practically were dependant on first creating a forge before you could start producing water. And then immediately (as the bucket is re-usable endlessly) your water problems are completely solved. Just build beside a lake or swimming pool, craft 1-4 buckets and any amount of water is producible in relatively short time. 2 buckets should be easy to produce even on day 2 or 3 and would generate nearly 5*3*2=30 jars of water in a single night in your base! Players investing in miner69er could produce even more buckets and make more water (another slight disadvantage of your idea).

 

Not saying your solution isn't a good one in many ways, it sure is less gamey for example. But it would be available later and has not the slow (depending on player) ramp up of water production that the dew collector solution has.

 

 

A few points in response.

 

First off, just to get it out of the way, dew collectors are NOT effective at regulating water collection during the early game. From day one as a new character, you can gather FAR more murky water from looting POI containers than you'll get from building a dew collector. It's just a fact. Especially if you spawn near a decent sized town with lots of residential and commercial buildings. Dew collectors are fine as an automated water collection mechanic, I suppose, but let's not kid ourselves -- they don't slow down water production in and of themselves. It was the removal of stackable water jars that slowed down clean water production, not the addition of dew collectors.

 

As for buckets, to produce large amounts of clean water using them, you'd basically have to do nothing but scoop and boil water non-stop all day. And even then you can't come anywhere  close to the amount of water that could be horded using empty jars from A20 and earlier versions of the game. Crafting a couple of water buckets -- or even 4 or 5 -- is absolutely nothing compared to filling hundreds (or thousands) of stackable glass jars from a puddle in a matter of minutes prior to A21. Add to that the fact that glass jars didn't deplete water sources, while scooping water with a bucket removes that block of water from the world. If you play with chunk and POI resets disabled, that means once the water is gone, it's gone. Permanently. Forever.

I also want to add that it's a little odd when some people act like building a base near a water source is somehow a cheesy exploit. The natural instinct of human beings is to settle near water sources! It is totally ingrained in us as an innate survival trait, and therefore it's ridiculous to NOT reward players for doing the one thing that absolutely anyone with any sense would do -- build near water!

But I wanna say again, this isn't about "realism" in a zombie apocalypse game. It's about artificially gamey and hamfisted mechanics that prevent players from doing what we intuitively know we should be able to do. It's even worse when a common sense feature, such as drawing water from natural sources, is removed after having been in the game for years. I find it incredibly aggravating.

 

Anyway, nothing else for me to say on the subject. I'm just happy that this game is so fantastically moddable. 😄

 

[ZombiDweller]

New water system mostly work if you stay loot abdudance =>50%. Below that finding water in POI's becomes extremely hard.

And with high loot % world feels like cornucopia of drink, food, equipment, weapons and items. Able to run multiple trader missions a day eliminates water survival aspect of the game in couple of hours of playing (2-3 ingame days).

 

If would have gone little different path with the water change. I would have added infection risk to all water sources. Making boiling it nessesary. And make it more aling with the world with weird infection changing people to zombies. (its game world, somethings doesnt need explaining. same as why we only can get water with dew collectors)

Add some other ways to acquirge water, like melting 100 snowballs to 1 tainted/infected (murky) water jar.

Scoop bucket of water, and boilit down to 10 jars of clean water. (1-2 hour boiling time to reduce mass production. Also requirement of bucket)

Enviromental change to make rainy days give change of infection, to stay on story about weird infection in game world.

Swimming or long touch time of water have chance to infection.

 

Player could take the chance. Drink murky water from water sources and risking infection.

 

Overall i like the change, it just need little refinement to fit multiple play styles of the game. More story like and fitting to the game world itself.

And there is always modding option.

 

[Shaenara]

I find that I can still loot Murky Water and clean it by cooking it. It is scarce though.

[meganoth]

13 hours ago, EvilPolygons said:

irst off, just to get it out of the way, dew collectors are NOT effective at regulating water collection during the early game. From day one as a new character, you can gather FAR more murky water from looting POI containers than you'll get from building a dew collector. It's just a fact. Especially if you spawn near a decent sized town with lots of residential and commercial buildings. Dew collectors are fine as an automated water collection mechanic, I suppose, but let's not kid ourselves -- they don't slow down water production in and of themselves. It was the removal of stackable water jars that slowed down clean water production, not the addition of dew collectors.

 

You CAN gather far more murky water by looting POIs if you are an experienced player in SP. Read Shaenara's post above or lots of other posts from new players saying they don't have enough water. (Shaenara, are you real or ChatGPT?). Some don't know all the sources, some simply have a harder time killing zombies and not getting enough kitchens looted in a single day.

And I can tell you that we were always thirsty the first few days as a 4 player group. After having aquired first 1 and then 3 dew collectors we had enough water for drinking, but not enough for drinking and crafting. We ended up building about 10 dew collectors. So yes, water scarcity was very effective for a rather long time in our game to throw sticks between our legs. And dew collectors only helped slowly rectifying this.

 

Naturally it is the whole water change (including not getting water from lakes) that does this. I may have been a bit careless in describing the whole water change unter the title "dew collectors"

 

13 hours ago, EvilPolygons said:

As for buckets, to produce large amounts of clean water using them, you'd basically have to do nothing but scoop and boil water non-stop all day. And even then you can't come anywhere  close to the amount of water that could be horded using empty jars from A20 and earlier versions of the game. Crafting a couple of water buckets -- or even 4 or 5 -- is absolutely nothing compared to filling hundreds (or thousands) of stackable glass jars from a puddle in a matter of minutes prior to A21. Add to that the fact that glass jars didn't deplete water sources, while scooping water with a bucket removes that block of water from the world. If you play with chunk and POI resets disabled, that means once the water is gone, it's gone. Permanently. Forever.

 

I was comparing your solution not to A20 but to the current solution. A20 was not a solution but a problem (at least to the devs).

 

Even a swimming pool has so many water blocks that it would suffice for a loong time. Don't even think about depleting a lake with the bucket method

 

13 hours ago, EvilPolygons said:

also want to add that it's a little odd when some people act like building a base near a water source is somehow a cheesy exploit. The natural instinct of human beings is to settle near water sources! It is totally ingrained in us as an innate survival trait, and therefore it's ridiculous to NOT reward players for doing the one thing that absolutely anyone with any sense would do -- build near water!

 

Why would I say it is a cheesy exploit when it would be exactly the thing I would do if silver water buckets were in vanilla? Everyone would do it. And that would make the water problem in everyone's game non-existent as soon as you have a forge, with a totally legitimite counter, not an exploit !

 

13 hours ago, EvilPolygons said:

But I wanna say again, this isn't about "realism" in a zombie apocalypse game. It's about artificially gamey and hamfisted mechanics that prevent players from doing what we intuitively know we should be able to do. It's even worse when a common sense feature, such as drawing water from natural sources, is removed after having been in the game for years. I find it incredibly aggravating.

 

"...after having been in the game in years". Sure, happens in EA, and I have to confess that I like it that so many things change between alphas.

 

Lots of players like to be confronted with new problems each alpha, I would say they have an affinity to EA. Lots of other players can't really handle change well or find it aggravating, they probably should wait for a game to exit EA before playing it.

 

 

Edited July 30, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Mister Forgash]

I'm not hating the dew collector. I am enjoying the removal of jars.. but from an immersion perspective, I wish it played out like this: It's easy find/make my 100s of jars, which I turn into 100s of murky water.. except that now- it becomes a costly and potentially dangerous process of getting water you can drink, or purifying it from that.. runoff you scooped from a ditch, or what you salvaged from the toilets last loot run.

 

..But this isn't really a complaint, water management is satisfactory and I really hope I didn't buy 7 Days to Stay Hydrated. 

[Buddy Revell]

Instead of jars disappearing, have the character animate smashing the jar against their head after drinking. Maybe returning broken glass... small chance of bleeding.  It'll be the Fun Pimp way.

Edited August 1, 2023 by Buddy Revell (see edit history)

[minisith]

2 hours ago, Buddy Revell said:

Instead of jars disappearing, have the character animate smashing the jar against their head after drinking. Maybe returning broken glass... small chance of bleeding.  It'll be the Fun Pimp way.

But there is no eating sounds so why are people claiming you eat it unless they are trolling?  You could say you smash it without it as it makes more sense then eating glass since eating shards of glass does kills you in the game.

[RipClaw]

15 hours ago, minisith said:

But there is no eating sounds so why are people claiming you eat it unless they are trolling?

This is probably meant more as a joke.

Spoiler

 

 

You can come up with whatever explanation you want as to why it is like this and not different. It doesn't really matter. The fact is that the game does not return an empty glass when you drink from it. Whether you come up with an explanation or just ignore it is up to you. I just see it from the perspective that it's a game and doesn't have to be realistic.
 

Edited August 2, 2023 by RipClaw (see edit history)

[KennyBMallNinja]

Been playing Alpha 21 now for a bit and my only gripe is about the water collection system is that when you are playing a game with no traders it is damn near impossible to find a filter. I thought finding honey in stumps was a challenge but I have yet to get lucky and get a water filter(I am assuming they are rare loot at best). 

[Krougal]

On 6/24/2023 at 12:46 AM, Roland said:

I've found two filter mods for the helmet during the early game after countless restarts over the past year. I agree that finding an early helmet filter mod ruins the water survival gameplay but I wouldn't exactly call it a common occurrence. In both cases, I just sold it because I wanted to play the water survival game but I guess it is there for someone like you who doesn't. If you're finding it as a common item in all your restarts over the past two weeks you must be very happy. congrats.

Much as I would hate to see it nerfed, I have gotten it pretty early in 3 of 4 A21 starts. Granted, I still make and use red tea/coffee/beer as their bonuses are situationally useful.

 

So maybe drinking water is only an issue the first day or two but honestly the water situation now never goes away because of the need for glue by the @%$#ing tanker load. QL5 robotics take stupid amounts of tape, and with the mod for QL6 scaling consistently it is even stupider at 90 for a turret, 60 for a drone.

 

I want a pump to pump water out of the nearby pond and make glue. That should be a late game thing!

Edited August 15, 2023 by Krougal (see edit history)

[GreasyMullet]

I hate the new water system.  Its beyond absurd and is killing crafting since its making it harder to make glue and duct tape.  I get they wanted to overhaul the system and that was not a bad idea but this is a terrible execution.  My base is by a lake, so why the heck am I having to scrounge toilets and use dew collectors?  I was super hopeful they would reverse course in this madness but it does not appear they have any desire to do so.

[Krougal]

I don't want to see the jars come back either after playing with it for a bit but maybe if we could boil buckets full of water and/or snow?

Again, we can do the handwave and get magic bottles full (as long as we get the bucket back).

 

[Roland]

4 hours ago, GreasyMullet said:

I was super hopeful they would reverse course in this madness but it does not appear they have any desire to do so.

 

We're at freaking Alpha 21.1. How do you know what they have any desire to do? How can they have thoroughly analyzed play data to decide whether they want to make adjustments or changes? Just because there are complaints doesn't automatically mean those complaints are representative of everyone and that they should just erase features they added almost immediately after release.

 

Any reversal or major changes to dew collectors, water harvesting, etc are certainly not going to come before A22 or A23 if they come at all. They like to take many months of play data to make such decisions and they don't knee-jerk revert features they've implemented based on initial reactions to change.

[binf_shinana]

個人的には、無駄な中間素材の削除には全面的に賛成であり、瓶の削除自体には賛成です。
ただし、露収集機が必要かと言われると「現状ではなくてもよかった」と回答します。

ダクトテープの数で全体のゲームバランスの舵取りをしたい意図は伝わりますが、拾ったり購入したぶんで足りてしまうため、あまり意味はありません。
爆発矢を大量に作りたいというオプションを達成したい場合は異なりますが、これについては露収集機があったとしても、現状では作るのが大変になりすぎていると感じます（手間に見合う性能になっていません）。

(google translation)

Personally, I'm totally in favor of removing the useless intermediate material, and I'm in favor of removing the jar itself.
However, when asked if a dew collecting machine was necessary, he answered, "I'm glad I didn't have it now."

It conveys the intention of wanting to steer the overall game balance with the number of duct tapes, but it doesn't make much sense because just picking it up or buying it will suffice.
It's different if you want to achieve the option of making a lot of explosive arrows, but I feel that this is currently becoming too difficult to make even if there is a dew collector (the performance is worth the effort not).

 

[Krougal]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

 

We're at freaking Alpha 21.1. How do you know what they have any desire to do? How can they have thoroughly analyzed play data to decide whether they want to make adjustments or changes? Just because there are complaints doesn't automatically mean those complaints are representative of everyone and that they should just erase features they added almost immediately after release.

 

Any reversal or major changes to dew collectors, water harvesting, etc are certainly not going to come before A22 or A23 if they come at all. They like to take many months of play data to make such decisions and they don't knee-jerk revert features they've implemented based on initial reactions to change.

In his defense Roland, you did say a page ago that it was "the devs top priority to get rid of jars" (I am paraphrasing here, but it was something to that effect) and even though you might not have much better insight than the rest of us, you guys tend to forget your words are taken as having the weight of the devs.

 

[Roland]

1 hour ago, Krougal said:

In his defense Roland, you did say a page ago that it was "the devs top priority to get rid of jars" (I am paraphrasing here, but it was something to that effect) and even though you might not have much better insight than the rest of us, you guys tend to forget your words are taken as having the weight of the devs.

 

 

And I stand by what I said. But just because they never plan to return empty jars doesn't mean that they wouldn't ever make other adjustments that current critics might see as improvements. There are many ways they might change what they currently have without adding jars back in. But that wasn't my point. It doesn't bother me that the guy wants changes to be made because he doesn't like the current system. That's perfectly fair. What bothers me is that he seems to expect them to have reverted it all within a month of the original release. My point is that we can expect that any major changes to the current system aren't going to come until at least A22. Yeah, the bottles won't be coming back ever but at the same time it's also way too soon to be disappointed that systems implemented in A21.0 haven't been overhauled or reverted by A21.1. Sure, there are critical posts in the forums and social media but there is also plenty of support. It is not overwhelming and universal hatred of the new changes in A21 by a long shot so the devs are not going to knee-jerk revert anything.

[Toops144]

I thought I'd dislike the changes to the water system, but I actually think it's fine.

 

I agree that it's difficult when starting out and that it's easier with more people in your group (which increases the chance of happening upon murky water or water purifiers), but it doesn't take too long to get to a stage whereby it's not something you have to worry about.

 

Actually in my last playthrough I did once find 3 screamers hanging around my water collector building I'd built with like 10 water collectors on the roof. Not sure if it's been scripted for them to try and destroy our water supply but I just added some defences around it to be safe. Would be cool if that were the case because as I said, I was at a stage where water was not an issue but if the enemies decided to target it at higher difficulties, then it would bring about a new challenge.

[Krougal]

55 minutes ago, Toops144 said:

I thought I'd dislike the changes to the water system, but I actually think it's fine.

 

I agree that it's difficult when starting out and that it's easier with more people in your group (which increases the chance of happening upon murky water or water purifiers), but it doesn't take too long to get to a stage whereby it's not something you have to worry about.

 

Actually in my last playthrough I did once find 3 screamers hanging around my water collector building I'd built with like 10 water collectors on the roof. Not sure if it's been scripted for them to try and destroy our water supply but I just added some defences around it to be safe. Would be cool if that were the case because as I said, I was at a stage where water was not an issue but if the enemies decided to target it at higher difficulties, then it would bring about a new challenge.

Mine are out in the open and noone has @%$#ed with them. The way screamers work is they are drawn by heat.

The way heat works is generally making noise. Using crafting stations all generate some heat. The chem station the most.

Resource gathering is a big heat generator too, especially with an augur or chainsaw.

 

This isn't heat in the literal sense, which I think many people take it as, but the figurative sense of "drawing heat to yourself"

So yes, even the dew collectors produce heat, which while it still doesn't make a lot of sense for them to outside of the obvious reason of limiting how many we spam, I think of it as signs of activity and civilization produce heat.

 

Some people would consider it a bonus, and although I generally do, I still want the ability to control when a screamer horde starts, it is a little annoying when you have planned to do some gardening and uninvited guests show up. A half a dozen or so dew collectors seems to be ok.

[meilodasreh]

I'm not a fan of the new water system, nor of how magazines work.

DF it will be for me again, as soon as Khaine throws out the A21 adapted (5.0?) version.

Getting water from any source, lbd, and some different use of the magazine system (curious how it will work, but I'm confident it'll be more to my liking than vanilla).

Ah just a few weeks away.

[Melange]

2 hours ago, meilodasreh said:

I'm not a fan of the new water system, nor of how magazines work.

DF it will be for me again, as soon as Khaine throws out the A21 adapted (5.0?) version.

Getting water from any source, lbd, and some different use of the magazine system (curious how it will work, but I'm confident it'll be more to my liking than vanilla).

Ah just a few weeks away.

You're not alone. I am looking forward to the next version of Undead Legacy myself (though I really enjoyed Darkness Falls as well). Both @KhaineGBand @Subquake and their teams have done awesome work with their interpretations of the game. Tbh, UL addressed the over abundance of drinking/crafting water during early to mid game before we were ever faced with having to deal with dew collectors and the removal of jars in A21 vanilla. Whats instore with magazine progression will hopefully be refreshing.

 

Yeah, off topic (kinda) but if vanilla is the only gameplay one knows, delving into some mainstream overhaul mods like those mentioned here might just be the key for extending one's enjoyment of 7Dtd. Its worked for me 😊

Edited August 19, 2023 by Melange
needed an 'overhaul'. lol (see edit history)

[Toops144]

On 8/19/2023 at 1:00 PM, Krougal said:

Mine are out in the open and noone has @%$#ed with them. The way screamers work is they are drawn by heat.

The way heat works is generally making noise. Using crafting stations all generate some heat. The chem station the most.

Resource gathering is a big heat generator too, especially with an augur or chainsaw.

 

This isn't heat in the literal sense, which I think many people take it as, but the figurative sense of "drawing heat to yourself"

So yes, even the dew collectors produce heat, which while it still doesn't make a lot of sense for them to outside of the obvious reason of limiting how many we spam, I think of it as signs of activity and civilization produce heat.

 

Some people would consider it a bonus, and although I generally do, I still want the ability to control when a screamer horde starts, it is a little annoying when you have planned to do some gardening and uninvited guests show up. A half a dozen or so dew collectors seems to be ok.

Yeah I understand you.

 

Like you my dew collectors are out in the open separate from the main base (around 100 meters away), but the idea of "drawing heat to human activity" so to speak makes sense.

[soultracer]

I hope this find a way to the developer. It's very uncool to take the Jar out of the game.
You find water, but no empty Bottle or Glass for storing the water and take it with me.
And if I find something to drink, I wouldn't throw away the Glass Jar. So why does it disappear after drinking?
Sorry, but that's stupid.
Also, the unrealistic amount you have to drink and eat!
Okay, it’s a survival game, and not everything is realistic, but that is very uncool.

[BFT2020]

Pretty late to the party really. 

 

 

 

They (developers) don't have any intent at this point to bring back empty jars, it is now consistent with every other liquid in the game which is what they want.  It is the same as bottles of acid or gas cans.  They don't want to deal with empty containers in their game.

 

 

 

 

[Adam the Waster]

It adds extra nutrients to our diet 

Every bit counts in the Apocalypse. 

 

[Rotor]

1 hour ago, BFT2020 said:

 They don't want to deal with empty containers in their game.

 

 

Not to nitpick, but if that is the end game, then at some point chest, safes, ranges etc are going to go poof like the  bird nests and jars?

 

Or is it just items that sit outside of PoI that give them problems?  Empty grills going bye bye?

 

Really just wondering, honest question.  

 

I mean, me thinks to is more of making it a gating item, so you can go kiss the traders butt AND give him some dukes.