PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary

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KhaineGB said:
Honestly, this could've been resolved by just lowering the amount of water murky water gives, increasing the dysentary chance and putting back the requirement to boil water in a cooking pot in the campfire, like it was in A16.

Back then we used to scrounge for every empty can we could just so we didn't have to drink the poop water ;)  Then make cooking pots super rare in loot (so you'd have to find a POI with them just on the countertop) and/or gun for making a forge asap so you can crank out a pot and grill as fast as possible.
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I don't know about that. You still ended up with dozens of empty bottles pretty quickly in A16 which in a single run to the nearest water source could all be refilled and reboiled. The removal of empty jars and hence the change that all drinks are now one-offs is a much more significant change than you are giving credit. It is not the same result as just making murky water give less hydration or making dysentary more common or require a pot to boil.

The ability for ANY drink to return an empty bottle which can then be infinitely refilled is definitely one of the key reasons water has never been a struggle. So it may be weird to not have empty bottles any longer but it isn't JUST weird as it definitely does have an impact you can feel and none of the things you suggested yield the same effect as the removal of empty bottles does.

Like I said, anyone can simulate it right now to get the gist of it by throwing away every empty bottle they find or get after drinking. It won't be exactly the same since there is no pure water to be found anywhere and there is more water in loot in A20 than there is in A21. 

 
Guys, who cares if you can’t drink from a bucket or pot. The point of the change is to make water more challenging and assumably to reduce junk stock like hundreds of empty glass jars or hundreds of boiled water.

Overall it sounds like a fun change imo.

 
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Even with the water collector I do think at some point there will be ample water because we will simple set up dozens of water collectors.

Pimps could always go the RUST route and have water collectors that can be drunk from but not carry water from unless you have let’s say an empty bleach bottle or similar rare(ish) loot that can hold let’s say 3 drinks worth of water and the water collector can hold max 5 units of water or something similar.

As I said earlier I feel water/tea is pretty useless in the current design past the first few days. Once you have a pot you have unlimited water, once out have a forge you have unlimited jars. 

 
Games'n'Grumble said:
@Roland Can you tell how long it takes to create one water in the dew collector? And how many units of water does the collector hold in total? :)
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<property name="MinConvertTime" value="21600" /> <!-- 21600 Game Seconds = 6 Game Hours -->
    <property name="MaxConvertTime" value="36000" /> <!-- 36000 Game Seconds = 10 Game Hours -->
    <property name="ConvertToItem" value="drinkJarBoiledWater" />
    <property name="SkyDetectOffset" value="0.5,2.5,0.5" />
    <property name="SkyDetectSphere" value="0" />

Looks like it takes from 6 - 10 game hours to generate a jar of water. Also, looks like one simple name edit could make it produce murky water instead if you wanted that challenge. Finally, it does appear that it tries to detect the sky above it so it cannot be built completely inside your base and work.

It holds up to 3 units of water.

 
Roland said:
Honestly, this is a change from simplistic to complex which is what everyone claims to want. They didn't dumb things down but added a new workstation that opens up a new type of farming. And really it isn't a whole new system. All they did was add a dew collector that produces pure water and removed empty bottles and they reverted back to requiring a pot to boil water.
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Well no, because what typically follows is the ability to get an item back is removed as well over time, as tfp stops using that xml trickery and it is no longer supported when it breaks, thus removing a potential modding feature, but that's besides the point.

It's simpler.  Now we have magic blocks that turn into water.  That's less complicated than having to trudge out to get water, even if it's by one step.

Before:

Step 1) fill water bottle.

Step 2) boil water bottle.

A21:

Step 1) make magic block.

...it's not a lot of additional complication, but it is more.

Mind you, I say the following without really believing that bottles were removed to make water harder.

Khaine is right.  If you really wanted to make water harder, there are many ways that could have been accomplished.  Some of them would have required bottles btw. 

Cooking clears bacteria 🦠 but not minerals.  A still, charcoal filter that needs to be changed each time on the bottle, bottles having a chance of breaking... just 3 quick ideas I came up with while pooping.  

Heck I kinda like the one time use charcoal filter on the bottle to make it a drinking bottle.  Coffee filter and charcoal required, plus a sewing kit if you're masochistic.  That'd *really* cut down on water.  Then, a dew collector would be a nice value add.

See?  Harder without the dew collector, while still making a dew collector cool.  And I didn't even have to remove anything from the game. 

 
Roland said:
There's no cover up here. People will get to play it once it is released and they can make up their own minds. I've accurately reported how the dew collector works, what has been changed, and that getting pure water is tougher now. Even if you are going to spam explore kitchen after kitchen to find a pot, that is something you didn't need to do before because you would find empty bottles, pure water, and murky water in those same kitchens. Raid five kitchens and you would probably come away with a pot, 4 bottles of pure water, 6 empty bottles, and a couple bottle of murky water. That would be about 12 bottles you could then refill and reboil forever. The things you found in those kitchens would easily set you up to have pure water always on hand for the rest of the game.

In A21 if you raid five kitchens you would probably come away with a pot and 2 bottles of murky water that won't return a jar. So you could take those home and boil them and get two drinks but have no bottles to refill which means you would have to go back out looking for more and not have any equipment for having infinite water supplies for the rest of the game from those five kitchens.

You could spam raid 20 kitchens and come home with a few pots and maybe even 10 or more bottles of murky water but no empty bottles for getting more from the nearby lake and once you drank those 20 bottles you would have nothing left to go and refill and repeat. 

You will have to decide once you play it in your non-biased non-roleplaying fashion if there is any additional challenge or not. I don't think it is challenging per se to stay hydrated since you can always drink murky water. Heck, you could walk over to a city sewer with water in it and slurp up as much as you want with an empty hand anytime and stay hydraded for a health cost. This change does give murky water a larger footprint in the game and it keeps you looking for water since there are no stacks of empty jars that you can refill all at once at any time. You can eventually get to the point of having crates filled with pure water but it is going to be a progression to get to that point and not simply the result of breaking into several kitchens.

I personally like the changes and I am not a crook.
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Roland said:
The point is not to make everyone thirstier. The point is make it so that having an easily renewable source of good water is more of a process and journey. The removal of empty bottles is key to that because empty bottles made having renewable good water attainable almost instantly. With empty bottles gone you will be glad to get any murky water you find in loot for a lot longer into the game because finding more water is the only way to replenish your stores. We have become so ingrained with the idea that after a day of looting we will have a large stack of empty bottles that can be re-used forever that the idea that any water we find now is a one use fix, is tough to imagine. 

You can sort of try it out now by immediately throwing away any empty bottle you get. Keep filled bottles and use them but then throw them away. Go one step further and throw away any fresh water you find in loot and only keep murky water and see if there is any change in challenge level for you. It is a sort of role-playing way to play (sorry Gup) but as a little preview into how the removal of empty bottles will affect the game it will let you see for yourself right now what the game will enforce later.

Alpha 20: Find about 10 bottles (empty or filled) and your struggle to keep hydrated is over since you have infinite re-uses of those bottles (morning of Day 1)

Alpha 21: Get a dew collector farm built and your struggle to keep hydrated is over since they will infinitely regenerate water (Longer but exact length of time will vary)
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Roland said:
I don't know about that. You still ended up with dozens of empty bottles pretty quickly in A16 which in a single run to the nearest water source could all be refilled and reboiled. The removal of empty jars and hence the change that all drinks are now one-offs is a much more significant change than you are giving credit. It is not the same result as just making murky water give less hydration or making dysentary more common or require a pot to boil.

The ability for ANY drink to return an empty bottle which can then be infinitely refilled is definitely one of the key reasons water has never been a struggle. So it may be weird to not have empty bottles any longer but it isn't JUST weird as it definitely does have an impact you can feel and none of the things you suggested yield the same effect as the removal of empty bottles does.

Like I said, anyone can simulate it right now to get the gist of it by throwing away every empty bottle they find or get after drinking. It won't be exactly the same since there is no pure water to be found anywhere and there is more water in loot in A20 than there is in A21. 
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Roland said:
I don't know that looting 1-3 jars of water from all those sources is more interesting than crafting dew collectors and developing a water farm. Are you saying that the bottles could not be refilled? That would be kind of the same thing I guess but still weird since you would have all these bottles but not be able to refill them. If you could refill the bottles in UL then the problem wasn't solved because once you have infinitely re-usable bottles in your inventory the hydration game is over. At least with the A21 changes there is a way to get renewable water but it is going to take time and progression to get there which makes it interesting-- to me at least.
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Roland said:
Well, that's it. My entire point is that the existence of empty bottles is what allows us to create drinkable water on a scale that invalidates any kind of struggle. But, maybe there is an "and" after all. Perhaps empty bottles is also what allows us to create glue on a scale that invalidates any kind of struggle in the mid to late game. We ALWAYS have enough glue/duct tape to ALWAYS have our best weapon in good repair and never have to make do with backups. We never run out of molotovs and explosives and our weapons all work all horde night long because our scale of production was unrealistically large and too simple to get up and running too quickly.

If you are having to choose between drinking and repair kits by day 22 in the A20 system then for sure you are going to have to make tough choices and possibly have to either go into a horde night with suboptimal preparations or at least be down to the back up weaponry by the end of it. In the long run, glue won't be a problem and you will be back to mass producing stuff that requires it and duct tape but you will need to build your water farm first.

Honestly, this is a change from simplistic to complex which is what everyone claims to want. They didn't dumb things down but added a new workstation that opens up a new type of farming. And really it isn't a whole new system. All they did was add a dew collector that produces pure water and removed empty bottles and they reverted back to requiring a pot to boil water.
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First time i was triggered so much from long time.

they simpilfy block upgrades, some schematics, making guns and now you writing about making complex. This is paradox

Yes we want complex but in logical way -  they can return gun parts, dunno cars with 10 diffrent parts, special workstation to make bullets, new ores. Even water can be solved in much logical way. There is base for  this - there is radiation so let say 99% water is radiated and your target is to find this 1% of clean water. But yeah let's remove regain bottles because why not xd. 

You wrote about enough glue/ duck tape etc.  so maybe... change repair kits? let say - 1 repair kit = hammer, "mini tool set" , duck tape and  wrech and  can be used 10 times. 

a lot of jars is logical not only because well.. you use it a lot but setting too - this is post apo right? i think find jar is easy. So just radiactive water .

and what is frustating even more? Even bigger focus on looting.  Because "there is a lot of diffrent POI so players can see them" . Somebody wrote about if there was  no "forced" to go inside this would be just background. And yes! that's true. Because there is no point to go everywhere. Let imagine there is zombie outbreake. Would you go to every house ? ofc not - maybe only while running away or to find shelter for the while. Most of time you would be focused on shops/ outpost etc. So... maybe instead "jUrNeY" is better to add more something logical? like focus on defence? Most of zombie unvierse is like ww1 - zombie outside people insided and tons of spikes , barbed wire, etc between them. And that's most cool thing. 

But why i'm triggered so much? 

No rly horror stuff because some people didn't liked scary things. Removed them

Melting forms? nah

reduce influence of weather

Removed flesh smell

Removed corpse decying ( i understand about performance issue but still -it's like someone give a bike and then take away after some time)

Removed guns parts.

Removed two types of spikes to make it simpler

simplyfily block upgrades

The most important thing in zombie games - zombies are such.... under piority.

Very .... how to describte this...  "16+ movie setting" - so small number corpses, lack hanging bodies, excecution places, lack of hm.. military controversial stuff just pretty generic ( i mean not quality but decision how it should looks like)  outposts and lack of sight of gore stuff in labs - this labs could be even normal civilian medical facitly making cought syrope not governament secret lab to create super weapon without law and ethic.  etc. i understand why they don't want to add teengers zombie because it could be banned is some countries so people would lose access to their game. 

So TFP decided to make pretty " safe " (nothing controversial) and a little bit generic setting ( i mean by this - something in B  90 - 00 's movie style) + simple to make game more "tutorial for mods" but... now nope their change their minds in very strange way. That's why i'm frustated - now this game looks like "mc for hardcore players" then "more casual for wider playerbase" now again change.  I undestand that's game is in alpha stage - but some game can keep this same "style" for years - project zomboid, satisfactory , medieval dynasty - on begining and after X time looks and works in this same spirit. 

So Roland - it's just too late too say "but you guys want to make this more complexed" - if this would be added 5 years ago this would be diffrent. Now i think most of just used to it for "casual and safe" vision of this game. The best thing could be if they just X years ago if they just say "this game will be focused on hardcore players who love brutal world of zombie and struggle to survive another game" or " this game will be casual surival to play with few friends and have fun"

 
Roland said:
You can sort of try it out now by immediately throwing away any empty bottle you get. Keep filled bottles and use them but then throw them away. Go one step further and throw away any fresh water you find in loot and only keep murky water and see if there is any change in challenge level for you.
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I wanted to ask about something similar related to this, I went into my A20 game to try and drink water straight from the lake and it doesn't work (I just punch the water), tried at various different places and I was barehanded. Didn't matter if I left click or right click. Character was 50% thirsty. Is drinking straight from water source a new thing in A21? (I could have sworn this used to be possible, but I only started around late A19)

Fanatical_Meat said:
Semi serious question and admittedly it hasn’t happened to me recently.

How do we suicide if you get stuck? I am assuming glass jars won’t be in everyone’s inventory all the time.

Will there be a new broken glass item?
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Scrapping any drinks (ex: bottle water, murky water, beer, tea, etc.) gives broken glass in A20, I'd assume it would be the same for A21

 
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Off topic here but imo ever since alpha 17 dropped the games pacing has felt too fast like I often end up beating the game on day 40 in previous versions I.e alpha 16 it took Me up untill day 120 to get absolutely everything I wanted dunno if it's just a me issue but progression through skills and loot hasn't been the same since then like the new perk system has its pros and cons over the old one but it doesn't feel complete to me whereas the old semi lbd one in alpha 16 did feel complete after they ironed out the spam crafting from a15.

I can with 100% certainty say that the game is getting better in every way but progression it feels every alpha since a17 it gets easier and easier to beat the game and get the top tier stuff 

 
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NekoPawtato said:
I wanted to ask about something similar related to this, I went into my A20 game to try and drink water straight from the lake and it doesn't work (I just punch the water), tried at various different places and I was barehanded. Didn't matter if I left click or right click. Character was 50% thirsty. Is drinking straight from water source a new thing in A21? (I could have sworn this used to be possible, but I only started around late A19)
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It was removed at some point and is returning in A21. 

Matt115 said:
So Roland - it's just too late too say "but you guys want to make this more complexed"
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I know. The change was not to make it more complex. The change was made to remove water bottles. It just happens to make the process of having a renewable water source a bit more complex through the process of building a water farm over time as opposed to bringing home 10+ bottles on day one. I wasn't saying that TFP was trying to make a more complex game with this change.

Guppycur said:
Radiation is an incredibly underused facet of this game ... 
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100% agree and 100% am confused about why since Joel is such a Fallout fan. I know they started moving towards it and had plans to have radiation zones within biomes and even for individual POIs. I have no idea why nothing along those lines has materialized yet.

 
Will filters for crafting the dew collector be in loot?

I play without traders (Because they give you everything on a silver platter), so if they are trader only, I'll be screwed!

 
Roland said:
I know. The change was not to make it more complex. The change was made to remove water bottles. It just happens to make the process of having a renewable water source a bit more complex through the process of building a water farm over time as opposed to bringing home 10+ bottles on day one. I wasn't saying that TFP was trying to make a more complex game with this change.

100% agree and 100% am confused about why since Joel is such a Fallout fan. I know they started moving towards it and had plans to have radiation zones within biomes and even for individual POIs. I have no idea why nothing along those lines has materialized yet.
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1. i'm not sure. So water bootles will be removed. That's fine but you still you will get back jar after drinking water from jar or you will loose a jar?

2. Well i think it's nice concept but hard to made in voxel game. If this game woudn't be voxel game they could easy add for example radiactive locations.  big bosses etc. in nonvoxel game you can't "dig" to treasure room instead using hazmat and risk going in radiactive places

 
That looks like very complicated understand how dew water works we talk about that since 4 pages.

That collect 3 good water and take a lot of time thats it. Why each time we discover a New things we repeat the same question during 1 week each hours just read before.

 
Roland said:
Well, that's it. My entire point is that the existence of empty bottles is what allows us to create drinkable water on a scale that invalidates any kind of struggle. But, maybe there is an "and" after all. Perhaps empty bottles is also what allows us to create glue on a scale that invalidates any kind of struggle in the mid to late game. We ALWAYS have enough glue/duct tape to ALWAYS have our best weapon in good repair and never have to make do with backups. We never run out of molotovs and explosives and our weapons all work all horde night long because our scale of production was unrealistically large and too simple to get up and running too quickly.

If you are having to choose between drinking and repair kits by day 22 in the A20 system then for sure you are going to have to make tough choices and possibly have to either go into a horde night with suboptimal preparations or at least be down to the back up weaponry by the end of it. In the long run, glue won't be a problem and you will be back to mass producing stuff that requires it and duct tape but you will need to build your water farm first.

Honestly, this is a change from simplistic to complex which is what everyone claims to want. They didn't dumb things down but added a new workstation that opens up a new type of farming. And really it isn't a whole new system. All they did was add a dew collector that produces pure water and removed empty bottles and they reverted back to requiring a pot to boil water.
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But the existence of being able to EVENTUALLY mass produce dew collectors also allows the player the ability to create drinkable water on a scale that invalidates any kind of struggle.

You're not SUPPOSED to be struggling at mid game+ . This feels like trying to artificially increase how long it takes for the player to be self sufficient based on feedback of people saying there's nothing to do at end game... so make it take longer to get there.

And this is the point I'm making that I feel is being ignored, because the TFP workers always, always, always tow the line and don't want to listen. It's not just "I have jars therefore infinite water!"... you're thinking too small.

It's "I have jars so I can get water. Okay, where's my nearest water source. It's X meters or kilometers away. Right, that's valuable time taken up by travelling instead of doing Y, then I have to wait Z amount of time for it to turn into water.... etc" (side note, city tiles need less water because that's adding to the problem)

And yes, EVENTUALLY you can get so many jars that water isn't a problem. That's FINE. That's ok. If it's within the first week, then yes, the amount found in loot needs to be adjusted. If it's within the first two weeks, it might need to be adjusted. If it's within the first 3 weeks (like my case), that is COMPLETELY acceptable given that most folks tend to stop playing vanilla around Day 40/50 and then make a new save on a new map, possibly with a challenge in mind.

Honestly, some loot and recipe tweaks? Job done.
 

Laz Man said:
Maybe, but how long does that really stretch the water survival challenge?  Pop a vitamin then spam drink all the murks you want.  Change vitamins you say?  Making pots super rare is a tough sell for MP servers.

Not saying your suggestions are not doable but they are not necessarily more fun then progressing towards having a dew collector farm.  Why not have both?  Well having both would diminish the collector to a fluff / convenience option since you wouldn't need it at all.
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1) Why does the water survival challenge need to be stretched beyond day 14 or day 21? (in my case).

It doesn't. Most players feel done around day 40. If they're self sufficient on water somewhere around day 20, this is acceptable based on feedback i've seen.

2) Then don't make vitamins make the player immune to dysentary? Make it work like infection, but progress a LOT faster, and then vitamins and/or goldenrod cure X amount. Like in the earlier alphas were drinking murky water and geting dysentary could damn near be a death sentence if you didn't get goldenrod tea.

3) Making pots super rare isn't a tough sell for MP when the quest system resets POI's. I'd just spam quests with houses in them. Limit pots to oven drop only or placeable block, keep running quests.

Then the player will have to be careful how they spend their dukes too. The trader has a pot? Do you want to buy that, food or ammo? The trader doesn't have a pot, well now you need to decide between drinking, eating or shooting things in the face.

It's all a resource balance, and TIME is a resource, which I feel is often forgotten.

 
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I believe that, as any new feature, this new water system will surely need to find its balance.

I'm confident the devs will get there, eventually.

But what I really like about the dew collector is that "apocalypse survival feel" that right now is missing because we can just scoop water from wherever, and be done.

 
Wow! OK. So, uh. I guess everyone saw the dew collector art and wants to know about A21 Water Survival.

The biggest takeaway from all of these changes is to try to bring back the feeling of survival. This is "The SURVIVAL Horde Crafting Game" after all.
There was just WAY too much food and water in the world and players would have boxes full of stuff at the end of Day 1.
We want players to feel the struggle of finding the simplest items first and working their way up the progressions.


Day 1:

You are given 1 jar of water at spawn. 

When that jar is consumed, the jar is not returned to your inventory. This mechanic was removed to promote survival aspects as well as the function of the new dew collector.

Having a hard time finding more water? You can now drink from bodies of water by looking at the water with empty hands, waiting a moment without moving, and then pressing E to drink.

Hand drinking AND murky water has the following side effects:
-5HP and plays a gross sound 
Has a 12% chance of dysentery

Other means of finding water is looting, vending machines, and traders.

Murky water can no longer be boiled without a cooking pot. This was skipping the risk murky has if consumed.

Snowballs are no longer a means to making water. Players could dig up stacks of snowballs and never have to find water again. They are still used in the Yucca Juice Smoothie or for throwing at your friends.

Loot has been adjusted so that drinks are no longer found in cabinets. There are just way too many cabinets in the game.
Many loot tables have been adjusted to only find murky water.
There are still rare chances to find water and other drinks in special loot containers.

Day 2 - 7:
Work on trader quests or looting POI's to find the resources needed for crafting a dew collector.

Once placed, a dew collector will slowly start to fill the bar on the first slot. When the bar is full, a jar of water will spawn in that slot.
Slots are filled based on time only and fills with or without the player being near it (works with the chunk unloaded).
The dew collector does not work any faster with rainfall.
The default settings are approximately 3 jars of water every 24 hours in game (60mins default real time). Random rolls can make this a few game hours shorter or longer.


Hope this helps to answer any questions. Please know that ANY of this can change before A21 launches.

 
[bunch of stuff]

So my fear is that the create item attribute will now be phased out of the game since (I believe) only the water uses it in vanilla.

Thoughts on that? 

 
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