Disclaimer: potential Cthulhu R'lyehian language to follow. 🙃
When I first played, was, long before I joined the forum. I didn't know there was one. Everything was scarce,
everything was unfairly after you "always", It was dark as pitch, and the architecture was artistic and surreal
in shape. Tim Burton "nightmare before Christmas" surreal. Now that I've set the stage.
There is a potential option, A Drought Mechanic. It creates a sense of urgency across the spectrum of game
play. "A brushing of the wings" as comparison.
Explanation: It only takes one locust, to take flight under the right circumstances
and all are affected. A frenzy of thought and or actions.
OR The Butterfly Effect, not the Ashton time warping movie, but the analogy.
OR (LOTR reference) One change that equally touches everyone. A gambit that can swing either way.
I personally feel, in the beginning the game "made" players hoard, because of the fear of not having enough of anything when
it was needed. There was a lack of resources because TFP and the game were at a fledgling state. Now hoarding is more so
done because it's always there and accessible, meaning all resources and loot. Remove one thing and it's more readily noticeable,
kind of like a pothole in your lawn.
If plants can grow, which at its core is basically the Y Dim being increased, then would it be possible to reverse the math
and have water itself reduce in volume, either over time and or be affected by weather? Enter my love for the landscape and
weather.
If loot container water is either reduced to nearly non-existent or removed completely would it not touch everyone, survivor,
craftier, farmer alike. And foster a natural but loathing dependency on those that have, meaning the traders. Price gouging,
and unfair quest requests to receive that which is needed, first for all else.
Introduce a water distillation model, that must be placed touching a water source, depletes the source over time, expensive to
build, slow to yield product, and runs on gas. Oh and it naturally creates a helluva heat map so it must be defended, Who has
the gas, Negan, OOPs i mean the traders. Back to the behest of the request system. They also have the parts to build your own.
The gas production model, It too must be placed at a water source to separate the impurities, but the caveat is it has to be a
natural water source because of the volume of water flowing through it. This brings about the necessity to mine resources, to
keep it going. It pollutes and contaminates the water source.
All water is contaminated to make it 100% safe, golden seal and antibiotics are added to the drinking water recipe. Or you get sick
and need the antibiotics to survive. This means looting, to find the resources. Not forced looting, but out of necessity, to survive.
Farmers don't get a pass, tainted water means tainted crops, lower yield percentages unless clean water is used and potential of debuffs.
Food yielded from animals has a higher percentage of tainted/spoiled meat, why because they drink the water also. In order to make it
100% safe then recipe incorporates honey, golden seal and water.
The Dew collectors catch raw rain water, after coming through the atmosphere its as pure as driven yellow snow. In order to produce
clean water, natural or man-made antibiotics must be added per daily yield.
Then when Bandits are introduced, base defense at its finest. Just think, TWD all of the invasions.
So if you are still awake and made it to this point, my question is.
If drought mechanic is used, creating a necessitated dependency on many of the other mechanics mentioned would it yes or no create a more
natural flow, and sense of urgency during the entire game?
addendum: The removal or severe reduction of all mine-able resources from loot, adds to the need to use or depend on the other aspects of
the game. Concrete should need water, building it out of dry goods reminds me of this. The Wise and Foolish Builders building their house
on sand. @Faatal went through the trouble of making a nice flowing water system, might as well put it to good use. Creating a codependency
or cohesion of mechanics included in Vanilla game. The filter could have charcoal introduced in the recipe, in order to filter in small volume,
the charcoal would need, mined coal, burnt at a campfire, and introduces reverse osmosis, instead of using antibiotics, if that sounds distasteful.