PC What was the point of the water change?

[meganoth]

I'm a newbie from a21, and I feel awkward about the water availability.

My thought was like this.

I have finally set up my campfire with my pot, I am able to purify murky water. Then, where I can get the bottled murky water? Just from the looting?

Okay, there should be another way. How about getting water from the pond with my bucket. Yay now I have water. How I can drink this? No?

Aha, there is a dew collector. I need a water filter to craft this. How to get the filter? Probably after I will able to craft my workbench. It's too early method for me.

Then, yesterday, I found and noticed the water filter was sold by traders and was not craft-able. And the dew collector provides me purified water. Fine

Did you notice there is a Journal in the game with lots of information? If you are stumped again, take a look.

There is a section about water and the water filter for example

 

[Riamus]

Did you notice there is a Journal in the game with lots of information? If you are stumped again, take a look.

There is a section about water and the water filter for example

The problem with that is most people never look at the journal and new players may not even really know about it.  You see a toast message for a second or two saying an entry was added and then it disappears.  And that often happens in the middle of fighting or doing something so you don't even see it.  The tutorial doesn't tell you to open the journal for information.  In the end, it is unknown or forgotten or ignored by people because it is not made more noticeable.  Most games have journal entries pop up onto the screen, making it noticeable.  Here, I wouldn't be surprised if most new players have no idea there even is a journal.

 

[meganoth]

The problem with that is most people never look at the journal and new players may not even really know about it.  You see a toast message for a second or two saying an entry was added and then it disappears.  And that often happens in the middle of fighting or doing something so you don't even see it.  The tutorial doesn't tell you to open the journal for information.  In the end, it is unknown or forgotten or ignored by people because it is not made more noticeable.  Most games have journal entries pop up onto the screen, making it noticeable.  Here, I wouldn't be surprised if most new players have no idea there even is a journal.

There is a big icon on the menu line on top among other options. I don't have any pity for players who don't click at least once through those options and check out what there is in night 1 or 2.

 

[Vaeliorin]

There is a big icon on the menu line on top among other options. I don't have any pity for players who don't click at least once through those options and check out what there is in night 1 or 2.

If there was a way to pause the game to read those, I might agree with you.  But as a new player (even as an experienced player) I wouldn't want to spend the time to read those while the day ticks away.

 

[ToneJumper]

@theFlu

@Lamblaska

Yes, it seems it was more fair and practical reasons. It is hard to believe a person in the zombie apocalypse waste any empty jar.

My suggestion is... for drinking purposes, always mix your water with something. If you are struggling with food. Red Tea might help you. If you are only struggling with water... Yucca juice is your friend. You can also make some goldenrod tea and drink water form lakes, and use your red tea when you get sick. 

Thanks for your suggestion. The drinks have more benefits than I thought until now.

Did you notice there is a Journal in the game with lots of information? If you are stumped again, take a look.

There is a section about water and the water filter for example

I did not come up with that. I will try.

 

[meganoth]

If there was a way to pause the game to read those, I might agree with you.  But as a new player (even as an experienced player) I wouldn't want to spend the time to read those while the day ticks away.

Spoken like a brute squad . In any war information is one of the most valuable resources.

So when would you spend XP points as a new player?  Since you first have to read the descriptions to know where to put points and what you don't need at the moment? Wasted time to read? You read something and you get valuable information for that, right?

Similarily what about if you die of thirst on day 2 as a new player because you don't have a clue how to get water? Would it have been wasted time to read the journal entry then?

I am not saying someone should read through all of journal pages on night 1, but he has ample opportunity to be aware there is a sort of info system where he could look up stuff if something isn't clear to him, like where to find water or food.

Time is only wasted if after that time you are not better prepared fo whats coming. And getting the info about the water filter is surely worth more than the few hundred xp you get for shooting zombies from your hideout in that first night

PS: Actually as a single player you can pause the game while reading such a page with ESC

 

[theFlu]

PS: Actually as a single player you can pause the game while reading such a page with ESC

Open Journal, press ESC, closes journal...

Open Journal, take a screenie, press esc a couple times for pause, go find the screenie. Handy-dandy.

I'm firmly in the RTFM-camp myself, I like to figure things out by reading.. but for games, ehh... ain't nobody got time to sit still reading. I'm here to shoot zeds, goshdarnit! I'd prefer if the skills and journal entries and whatnot were readable outside the game, which is what wikis and such are for of course. But an option from the start menu wouldn't hurt. Might even have a more read-friendly format.

Atm, just make a test game and read them in there, except for the journal as it isn't unlocked...

Hoping for some changes with the UI-redesign.

 

[Lamblaska]

@theFlu

@Lamblaska

Yes, it seems it was more fair and practical reasons. It is hard to believe a person in the zombie apocalypse waste any empty jar.

Thanks for your suggestion. The drinks have more benefits than I thought until now.

I did not come up with that. I will try.

From a balance perspective.... Jars made water management too easy. Almost any recipe will waste them and you would just accumulate them more and more. Fill them at any pool and boil them easily. It was also one more thing to carry around (but I think the main point has to increase the challenge for water).

From a immersion perspective... I just take it as most of the things in game, how they are carried around is abstracted, as it happens with food, ammo, and craft materials. Let's be honest here... there's little logic on how things stack in this game. You can stack 125 murky waters but only 10 waters or teas or juices. You can carry 6K small rocks, but only 1 car battery for each slot. I don't understand the logic behind it.

 

 

[Rotor]

 I don't understand the logic behind it.
 

/handwavythingie

Gates Think You Must.

 

[Vaeliorin]

Spoken like a brute squad . In any war information is one of the most valuable resources.

So when would you spend XP points as a new player?  Since you first have to read the descriptions to know where to put points and what you don't need at the moment? Wasted time to read? You read something and you get valuable information for that, right?

Similarily what about if you die of thirst on day 2 as a new player because you don't have a clue how to get water? Would it have been wasted time to read the journal entry then?

I am not saying someone should read through all of journal pages on night 1, but he has ample opportunity to be aware there is a sort of info system where he could look up stuff if something isn't clear to him, like where to find water or food.

Time is only wasted if after that time you are not better prepared fo whats coming. And getting the info about the water filter is surely worth more than the few hundred xp you get for shooting zombies from your hideout in that first night

PS: Actually as a single player you can pause the game while reading such a page with ESC

Actually, kinda the opposite.  But I remember my first time playing I was terrified about getting things done for the first horde (granted, A16 hordes were a lot harder than modern hordes) and I've never been one to hide in my base at night.  Night times were spent sneaking around mining surface boulders and cutting down trees.  There's just so much information in the journal that it would take even a fast reader a pretty decent time to read all of it (I still don't know that I've read all of it, even at close to 2k hours.)

You can carry 6K small rocks, but only 1 car battery for each slot. I don't understand the logic behind it.

Rocks don't have individual quality/durability, while car batteries do.  That's why they can't really stack.

I do wonder what people with normal stack sizes do with engines.  I usually end up with 3-4 storage crates full of batteries by the end of a world, if I had to do that with engines as well it'd be crazy.  My last A21 world I had 104 engines on Day 18 or so, and having those not stack (to 12) would have been awful.

 

[theFlu]

I do wonder what people with normal stack sizes do with engines.  I usually end up with 3-4 storage crates full of batteries by the end of a world, if I had to do that with engines as well it'd be crazy.

Well, I can't speak for the average population, but I only wrench cars if I specifically need engines. So I'll basically never have a surplus of more than a gen bank's full. In this version the fuel gains are even less than before, so even less reason to wrench any; just get some shale when you need it.

 

[Riamus]

Well, I can't speak for the average population, but I only wrench cars if I specifically need engines. So I'll basically never have a surplus of more than a gen bank's full. In this version the fuel gains are even less than before, so even less reason to wrench any; just get some shale when you need it.

Shale works once you can use it.  Until then, if you want a motorized vehicle, you will need to wrench cars.  I have wrenched way more cars in A21 than in A20 because of this.  I have no real need for so many batteries and engines and radiators but I don't have much choice if I want gas before I can make my own.  And with the lower gas amounts from the cars, I have to wrench more.  I drive a LOT. 

But I don't worry about stack sizes.  They aren't really a big deal, though I don't see why they can't allow things like engines to stack.

Spoken like a brute squad . In any war information is one of the most valuable resources.

So when would you spend XP points as a new player?  Since you first have to read the descriptions to know where to put points and what you don't need at the moment? Wasted time to read? You read something and you get valuable information for that, right?

Similarily what about if you die of thirst on day 2 as a new player because you don't have a clue how to get water? Would it have been wasted time to read the journal entry then?

I am not saying someone should read through all of journal pages on night 1, but he has ample opportunity to be aware there is a sort of info system where he could look up stuff if something isn't clear to him, like where to find water or food.

Time is only wasted if after that time you are not better prepared fo whats coming. And getting the info about the water filter is surely worth more than the few hundred xp you get for shooting zombies from your hideout in that first night

PS: Actually as a single player you can pause the game while reading such a page with ESC

IF the journal entries were better set up, I might agree.  But the setup of journals in this game as in most games is so poor that they aren't worth reading in most cases.  If you want to look up a specific thing, then it's okay... if that thing is unlocked.  But otherwise, journal entries are just a horrible UI format for information, imo.  And I still stand by having the tutorial focus on specific details and not have to craft a bunch of stuff (and it should be possible to disable it without loss of the perk points).  Tutorials shouldn't really be "go craft this.  now, go craft that.  next, craft this."  I know some other games do that too, but it is a bad design.  Tutorials should explain things to the player that they will need to know the first time they play the game.  Telling someone to craft and upgrade a block in the middle of nowhere without even mentioning that you can change the block shape or that you can use those blocks for building a base is pretty much useless.  Not having dew collectors mentioned in the tutorial is bad.  And so on.  In short, the tutorial is pointless and the journal is mostly useless and often missed and forgotten about by players long before there is something they can't figure out.

 

[theFlu]

Shale works once you can use it.  Until then, if you want a motorized vehicle, you will need to wrench cars.

For me, for the couple A21 playthoughs, these have lined up pretty well. There was a few days when either chem station or the books were not available yet, so I wrenched about a dozen cars. But when I don't have the fuel, I'll Mega Crush back and forth, so it's barely an inconvenience for the few days ..

 

[Rotor]

radiators

Are these still usable for brass?   'Cause the only reason i wrench cars.

 

[Riamus]

Are these still usable for brass?   'Cause the only reason i wrench cars.

Yes.  I use them for brass as well but I don't bother getting them often since they don't stack more than 5.

 

[theFlu]

Are these still usable for brass? 

Yes, but so are dukes ...

 

[Vaeliorin]

Well, I can't speak for the average population, but I only wrench cars if I specifically need engines. So I'll basically never have a surplus of more than a gen bank's full. In this version the fuel gains are even less than before, so even less reason to wrench any; just get some shale when you need it.

I'm a weirdo.  I wrench a lot.  My last playthrough I had about 5k Mechanical and Electrical Parts, and over 30k gas.  I don't so much in the early game, but once I've got a decent wrench so it doesn't take me half an hour to wrench a single car, I pretty much wrench every car I see.

 

[theFlu]

I'm a weirdo.  I wrench a lot. 

Nothing wrong with that, but that kinda answers the "what do people with normal stack sizes do with... ?"; we .. don't

 

[Gaz]

In my opinion, the new water system has ruined the game. Finding new ways to drink water isn't fun, it's silly and tedious.

When in a survival situation you would hoard any materials that would be valuable to you, including something to drink out of.. you wouldn't drink out of a jar and then discard it after use, that's just daft. 

I want to be able to scoop up some murky water and go and boil it. Don't try and fix something that isn't broken

 

[doughphunghus]

here... there's little logic on how things stack in this game. You can stack 125 murky waters but only 10 waters or teas or juices. You can carry 6K small rocks, but only 1 car battery for each slot. I don't understand the logic behind it.

Yeah, i agree. I don't know the true answer but i feel its something along the line of:

- batteries (and anything with a "quality" to them that degrades) cannot stack because the qualities of each item may be different. 
- 6k stacks for "mined resources" is probably because they want it to be "painless" to mine and carry it back, as well as pick up a stack and build a base/repair it. 
 

The 125 jars vs 10 water ... Im totally guessing here based on the above resource stacks possible logic: it was probably to make it as painless as possible to harvest water and bring it back to base.

there are some "weight" tags in the XML so maybe they had planned on making items have weight and the stacks were based on this some time ago? Like "yeah, if you're not careful you will have 6k rocks and its heavy but you can carry it"?

but then again, radiators, engines, clothing with no quality: then the logic makes no sense.  So the lat guess is: as the game versions evolved, no one want and cleaned up old "ideas" as stacking and weight considerations are too low on the priority list at the moment, so its all kinda bonkers right now... but its more of a minor inconvenience vs breaks game vs OP stacks?