PC Bring back water jars or let us craft them!

[meganoth]

Does that imply that more experienced players would have other means of obtaining a filter?

No, why should it? Getting filters at the trader is dead easy for an experienced player already, and alternative ways could only make it easier. Naturally this ignores special playstyles, but my take on that is that they do not include them in their evaluations when they talk about new designs or have them as optional goals when everything else is equal.

Filters in loot may have been put in for alternative trader-less playstyles and then balancing of it forgotten or just so it isn't really a trader-only item, who knows?

hat's mostly semantics. If you wish it called "not supported" instead of "destroyed".. eh, point of view difference, the end result is the same.

Well, Rotor understood that it makes a difference. He said clearly that if it were a design goal then there is no chance in hell of it getting changed, otherwise there is a chance. And I don't see that the word "destroyed" has "deliberately" built in. You can destroy something through not supporting it.

The difference is that it is much more difficult to change something that was done deliberately as a goal by TFP than something that happened because they just didn't factor it in. And it also is "morally" a different thing if something is done deliberately or accidentally.

Gating all gear progress behind the "number of POIs you've looted" kinda has the obvious side effect of removing any progress if you're not looting POIs. Looting POIs is the one chosen way for A21. That will effectively remove all other playstyles and they're at least testing the complete removal of those other playstyles with A21. The water changes fit neatly in a subset of "looting POIs" -playstyle, I won't believe for a minute that's by accident.

I think they are designing with the "average player" in mind and that player IS surely using the trader and doing quests. I just don't see a reason for them to deliberately remove playstyles, but I can easily see their mantra being "Alternative playstyles without traders or quests are possible with modding and options, we made modding easy, so we don't need to design with those alternative playstyles in mind.".

You can regard the difference as just semantics, for me there is a difference there. Different attitude of TFP means different ways to talk with them to possibly get a change in you may want. For example I would give a much much higher chance for the suggestion to increase filters in loot to succeed than the suggestion to add "emtpy jars" into the game again. And it also influences whether I see them in a positive or negative light.

 

[theFlu]

No, why should it?

Because you specified "for starting players"; that implies "for others there's something different". I guess by "starting players" you meant "players on day 1-2" but not necessarily "new to the game".

Having an item appear once every 20 playthroughs in loot, but being sold by the trader guaranteed on day 1.. yeah, it's a 2000 duke win once every 20 games, but it doesn't really make the thing "not trader-only" in practice.

The difference is that it is much more difficult to change something that was done deliberately as a goal by TFP than something that happened because they just didn't factor it in. And it also is "morally" a different thing if something is done deliberately or accidentally.

If the milk is on the floor, mopping it up is going to take the same amount of effort whether grandpa knocked a glass off the table, or the 6 year old stared you in the eyes laughing while pouring it out. Sure the granps might be easier to convince to mop it up, but we, players, forum users, and afaik mods, can't know if a result was intentional or not. All we know is there's milk on the floor.

Guessing the reason "why they did it" is rather fruitless; if you guess wrong, you're going to be met with ridicule like "don't read between my lines". And you're going to be wrong about 99% of the time - at the very least there's always 'something else' that you didn't think of, behind which people will mentally hide. Instead, just point out the facts of a case and move on.

Facts of a case: Oreo cookies are better than high dose statin therapy in lowering LDL-cholesterol in a lean-mass-hyper-responder. "Why would anyone want to do such an experiment? - Who cares, they did. And the results are in." You can start guessing my motives of making that statement, but ... I couldn't really describe them, there's plenty.

Different attitude of TFP means different ways to talk with them to possibly get a change in you may want.

Sure, if we could actually speak with them. We can't, and they don't design the game based on forum whining, or so I've heard. We just whine as a group activity. It's good fun, I guess..

 

[meganoth]

@meganoth Getting rid of the jars is just a minor thing.

For TFP? Not according to Roland who was listening in on their design meetings at that time. He actually said at least once that they started with the objective to remove the single container left in the game after every other container had been removed. And we heard from Madmole that water jars "is some leftover minecraft mechanic the engine had when we started and never a design we wanted". Game Designers actually care about a clean structure of their design just like UI designers care about dividing lines having the same width or other details I don't even see if someone tells me what to look for. 

That we have other priorities goes without saying.

One that makes it possible to tell people "Hey you don´t need to deal with those empty jars in loot anymore, it´s  good for you" But that could be entirely solved by making the jars a craftable only item that dissappears if you drink something. There is still so many things you throw out right away after looting. And for the problems with having too many items in the game due to Engine limitations, the new method has introduced one more item. Jars are gone, collector and filter were added.

I hope @Roland chimes in as he is in a position to provide the facts. But from everything said by developers and Roland I am very sure that removing empty jars to clean up the design was a major reason and that they would have done the change irrespective of whether it reduces items for the engine or not. When Madmole was talking about it, he said "One less wasted slot in inventory.". In other words "reducing (useless) items for the player", not "reducing items for the engine".

There is nothing wrong with having the filters at the trader to make sure people have an easy way to get them. The problem is that they are exclusive to the trader.

As I said in the other post, I would guess that increasing the probabilites for filters in loot might be possible if many players ask for that.

And if madmole deceides to speak up about the reasons, why would he tell us some reasons and hold back others? That makes absolutly no sense. Unless he wants to hide that they are trying to force people into the trader/quest/looting cycle.

When software is designed by a team there are often different solutions proposed and in design meetings they decide which option is the best one. They may start with a list of reasons why they want to do a change, but some of those reasons are low on that list and in the design meeting even more reasons may come up that speak for or against one of the different solutions. Such a list can get pretty long but many of those reasons are "soft" reasons, they influence the decision but are not mandatory. Most are probably even forgotten after the meeting and would only turn up again if they were to talk about that topic again.

Madmole doesn't strike me as someone who would talk endlessly about a subject, when he answers people here in the forum he would not describe such a design meeting in detail, he would just list the most important reasons, essentially the original (mandatory) design goals. And that isn't even talking about company rules, privacy, keeping features secret so not to give false expectations... . We will never get accounts of everything happening or getting talked about in there.

But there are dozens of design rules or reasons that come into play when deciding between almost equally good solutions in regards to the main goals or when the specific details of a solution (how many slots in a dew collector or the chance of filters in loot) are discussed.

As a hypothetical example: I could imagine that "Another workstation would be beneficial" might have been a minor reason that had come into play when they decided between different solutions. Not as an original design goal, but someone might have just mentioned it in the meeting and most agreed and then the dew collector solution got another thumbs up. Nobody would have protested if the final solution would not have included another workstation, but it was part of the decision making and would speak slightly against solutions without new workstations.

 

[meganoth]

Because you specified "for starting players"; that implies "for others there's something different". I guess by "starting players" you meant "players on day 1-2" but not necessarily "new to the game".

The former, though I would assume that a veteran player doesn't need that safety net anyway. A fire extinguisher is a safety net for fire, it doesn't imply there is something different avaliable to help with flooding

Having an item appear once every 20 playthroughs in loot, but being sold by the trader guaranteed on day 1.. yeah, it's a 2000 duke win once every 20 games, but it doesn't really make the thing "not trader-only" in practice.

Agreed

f the milk is on the floor, mopping it up is going to take the same amount of effort whether grandpa knocked a glass off the table, or the 6 year old stared you in the eyes laughing while pouring it out. Sure the granps might be easier to convince to mop it up, but we, players, forum users, and afaik mods, can't know if a result was intentional or not. All we know is there's milk on the floor.

It is a major difference since the 6 year old would get no ice cream or has to go to his room because he deliberately did it. Grandpa would still get his ice cream.

...

Sure, if we could actually speak with them. We can't, and they don't design the game based on forum whining, or so I've heard. We just whine as a group activity. It's good fun, I guess..

Talking about it has a chance of them noticing a potential problem (or even solution). In the past that might have induced them to check their telemetry, since gamesparks is no more I don't know what they do for checking. Telemetry would have been the reason why they ultimately change something but without the initial forum posting they would never have asked the right question.

It also has a chance of reminding a developer with the same opinion as you to put it on the topic list of the next team meeting. A good argument may even change the mind of a developer so he brings it up in internal discussion. It also could give a developer an idea just by thinking about it again.

Some developers and testers do read the forum so I heard. But they are forbidden to tell you internal secrets and the easiest way to do that is not to post. And I think one task of the super moderator is to sum up what happens in the forum to the devs. I am sure they are aware that water is still discussed here and on steam.

It is like Schrödingers cat. All we can do is put radioactive material into the black box and hope that some rays hit the cat . But we have no influence what the radioactive material does in the box and we will likely never know what happens in the box. We will only see the box opened each alpha version and see a living or dead cat.

 

[theFlu]

The former, though I would assume that a veteran player doesn't need that safety net anyway. A fire extinguisher is a safety net for fire, it doesn't imply there is something different avaliable to help with flooding

You mean to say adding filters to the trader was a way for newbies to start floods? ... Just kidding  

It is a major difference since the 6 year old would get no ice cream or has to go to his room because he deliberately did it. Grandpa would still get his ice cream.

And you're still just leaving the milk on the floor in both cases. Yes, socially it would matter. But we have no way to send TFP to his room, so we can only hope they're actually a grandpa and will figure out there's milk on the floor, either on their own or at least when told so. I'm telling him so. If he did it on purpose, well, sucks to be me standing in the puddle, at that point the best I can do is to step away from it. And maybe come back to spamloot a few POIs in A22 and see if my socks still get wet then.

Yeh, some of the devs read the forum and likely do get ideas from here. But our speculations on "why they've done thing X" are just noise; if we're wrong, it's just a mental tripwire to miss the actual feedback, and even in the rare case we get it right, it's not really going to assist them in addressing anything as they will still have other goals to meet.

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

Haven´t we already been at the point where roland said he just assumed that they are removing the jars for that reason? I really need to take screenshots. Well in this case it isn´t too far back to search, like when someone from the team claimed the spawn slider is only temporarily removed for balancing reasons. And now we get crossplay and i am 100% sure that slider will never come back due to console hardware limitations.

 

[Roland]

No assuming when it comes to the removal of jars. TFP fully planned on removing them regardless of any changes to early water survival. Removing jars was a top priority and I saw nothing in dev chat to indicate that the priority has changed. I can't guarantee that jars will never be returned as a craftable item or as a lootable item but I think it is highly unlikely. In addition, I have heard that there has been a lot of cleaning up of unused code as well as part of their efforts to optimize and release on consoles.

If you want to read an actual assumption of mine then here it is: It may be that even modders will have to use their own assets for empty water containers in the future.

 

[Rotor]

No assuming when it comes to the removal of jars. TFP fully planned on removing them regardless of any changes to early water survival. Removing jars was a top priority and I saw nothing in dev chat to indicate that the priority has changed. I can't guarantee that jars will never be returned as a craftable item or as a lootable item but I think it is highly unlikely. In addition, I have heard that there has been a lot of cleaning up of unused code as well as part of their efforts to optimize and release on consoles.

If you want to read an actual assumption of mine then here it is: It may be that even modders will have to use their own assets for empty water containers in the future.

Was there any consideration to play changes or were those un intended consequences?

 

[Roland]

Jars were removed about 8 months before A21 released. There was a lot of testing and experiencing of the consequences and subsequent development of the early water survival because of it. I don't know whether there were any consequences that caught them by surprise at the time but you can bet that by time the game released to the public, any and all consequences were fully considered. 

The biggest complaint I see is immersion. Unfortunately, not everyone is affected the same way by immersion. When I first experienced the change it was shocking for sure. But I quickly grasped that empty jars weren't really gone, they were just abstracted like many aspects of the game and I made the adjustment. The devs had long made the adjustment in their own thinking since it was their plan for even longer. Many gamers have made the adjustment since the release. But there are still quite a few who can't get past it and it destroys their sense of immersion and it upsets them. That's understandable. But it makes the issue of whether there is an objectively bad consequence somewhat murky. The "bad" consequence of nuked immersion is just not a universal result for everyone. The same is true for the fun factor of the process of solving water needs. Some think it is much better than the before and others see it as tedious and boring and much worse.

So since there really is no consensus among gamers it really just comes down to what the devs, themselves, want and they've crafted something they like. They aren't negatively affected by the immersion factor and they are having fun with what they created and despite the polar views expressed heatedly here, on steam, on reddit, on discord, on x, etc. the change hasn't had any kind of negative impact on player numbers, reviews, or the game's popularity.

In fact, I'm willing to bet that we will see more development to the current water survival gameplay rather than any reverting back to the way it was-- especially in regards to empty jars.

 

[Rotor]

I meant with the emphasis that the change brought about, of having to dedicate much much more time, and effort, into looting and much more reliance on the trader.

 

[Roland]

Yeah, but Joel and Rick both really enjoy looting and clearing POIs and harvesting stuff with a wrench to get components. That is a major source of fun for them when they play.  They also like the traders and want them to be a big part of the game. I know some players would like to see them diminished in the game but it isn't their game.

Finally, Both Joel and Rick are roleplay-type gamers who care more about playing the game like an unfolding story. They aren't concerned with progressing quickly at the expense of giving up the story by playing organically at the expense of only caring about being optimal in leveling up and progressing to the top quickly. Joel calls that playing the game like a spreadsheet and he doesn't subscribe to that playstyle.

At the same time they aren't going to put in a bunch of restrictions to prevent players from using the trader to the max and following strategies to get all the magazines as quickly as possible. Players can choose to play the game more organically and do a mix of all the different activities available to them or min-max the hell out of everything even to the point of stressing about how many decimal points of heat one more dew collector is going to add.

I don't think they will do much to change things, tbh, beyond tweaking the balance a bit so that crafting isn't so quickly and easily outpaced by loot, trader inventories, and quest rewards. But even after they do their thing, I will bet you that someone who pushes quests will still end up outpacing their ability to craft with the rewards they get. If people go into the harder biomes early then the loot they find will often be better than what they can craft.

 

[katarynna]

A partial solution to some of the complaints would be to simply add more destroyed dew collectors to different pois. add them to all the traders and maybe farms, or whichever they choose.

That would eliminate the need to use the trader to obtain water filters, but of course the "no looting playstyle" would remain affected.

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

Well there we have it, it´s not about water. Or the need for a new crafting skill system. It´s about using POI´s and the trader. Wich they could do all day long with the old system aswell. It´s not about their personal preference but forcing a playstyle onto everyone imo.  Still need to search for that jar thing though.

If you have quests and a trader, you need to balance that. It´s not the players job to balance the game with their playstyle and avoid quests and traders to not outpace the need of crafting.  You can´t just go and say, well it´s your fault that you do quests everyday and mess up balance by doing so.

If a system is easily abusable by min/maxing it´s not a good system and needs to be reconsidered. It´s not the players fault. It´s the devs that make it possible.

 

[meganoth]

Well there we have it, it´s not about water. Or the need for a new crafting skill system. It´s about using POI´s and the trader.

You have a severe case of selective reading IMHO. The water change IS about water and removing jars. Just that Roland additionally said that Joel and Rick have zero problems with choosing trader-centric solutions for a problem.

Before I get the "semantics" argument back, this just means it is no use arguing with "trader gets too powerful" with them, the central game loop of doing quests for the trader is a given. I still see no reason for them to be against an increase of filter probability in loot for example.

 

[BFT2020]

Well there we have it, it´s not about water. Or the need for a new crafting skill system. It´s about using POI´s and the trader. Wich they could do all day long with the old system aswell. It´s not about their personal preference but forcing a playstyle onto everyone imo.  Still need to search for that jar thing though.

I feel like if someone needs to mod in tin foil hats for you.

Also look up confirmation bias and see if that applies in this situation.

 

[BFT2020]

 In addition, I have heard that there has been a lot of cleaning up of unused code as well as part of their efforts to optimize and release on consoles.

Not part of this original thread, but I have been cleaning up the unused code myself when I mod items in the game.  My OCD just can't stand the old code commented out when I copy an item to make a slightly less powerful repaired version.  BFT2020 approves  

 

[Rotor]

Yeah, but Joel and Rick both really enjoy looting and clearing POIs and harvesting stuff with a wrench to get components. That is a major source of fun for them when they play.  They also like the traders and want them to be a big part of the game. I know some players would like to see them diminished in the game but it isn't their game.

Fair enough "fuhgeddaboudit".

I hope still mod enabled when all said an done.

Joel calls that playing the game like a spreadsheet and he doesn't subscribe to that playstyle.

On that we can agree....hence it would be nice not get funneled, but it is what it is.

 

[theFlu]

On that we can agree....hence it would be nice not get funneled, but it is what it is.

Heh, ye, the spreadsheet for the current iteration.. no matter how many rows you fill, the answer is "Go Quest".

 

[Roland]

Well there we have it, it´s not about water. Or the need for a new crafting skill system. It´s about using POI´s and the trader. Wich they could do all day long with the old system aswell. It´s not about their personal preference but forcing a playstyle onto everyone imo.  Still need to search for that jar thing though.

That's not what I was saying. All I'm saying is that the removal of jars was something they wanted separate from any desire to change water survival or crafting systems and no matter how they may alter such things in the future, they won't be including the return of empty jars for any conceivable new iteration.  The desire to remove empty jars came first and then the changes to water survival came second. It was not a desire to change the water survival game and the best way they thought to do that was to remove jars. 

Also, they aren't making changes FOR THE PURPOSE OF forcing players to use the traders and explore POIs more. It's just that they aren't shy about utilizing the trader and POI exploration in the game. They don't have any of your hangups about it so they will readily incorporate those things unapologetically. Of course there are fans of the game (maybe former fans now) who dislike the trader and/or dislike clearing POIs for quests or otherwise and these people hate the changes. That's fair. But it is also fair and not at all sleazy or unethical or a betrayal on TFP's part to expect them to mod the game to their liking since their liking is at odds with the likings of the game's creators.

If you have quests and a trader, you need to balance that. It´s not the players job to balance the game with their playstyle and avoid quests and traders to not outpace the need of crafting.  You can´t just go and say, well it´s your fault that you do quests everyday and mess up balance by doing so.

It's funny that you accuse the devs of desiring to force one playstyle on everyone as their motivation for these changes and then immediately call upon them to force players to play a certain way instead of leaving it up to their choice. I never said they won't work to balance the pacing of obtaining things through crafting vs obtaining things in loot, trader inventories, and quest rewards. But I don't believe they will ever put much work into trying to stop min/maxers from playing how they wish. Min/maxers have been doing their thing since the inception of RPG elements into the game. From the moment in Alpha 11 that quality tiers were added to tools and weapons and crafting the same item over and over increased the quality (with a random + or - 50) there were players who began to min/max and the complaining about the optimal path and how people were forced to follow that path began. It will never end, either. Right now the optimal path is spam questing so those who optimize claim that you must do that. In the past the optimal path was something else. There was even a time when a bug made harvesting grass the fastest way to level up and until the bug was fixed...you guessed it, people complained that TFP was forcing them beat up grass.

And let's be honest. Some people like playing the game that way. Why should they be blocked from their brand of fun when all it is is a choice for how you want to play.

If a system is easily abusable by min/maxing it´s not a good system and needs to be reconsidered. It´s not the players fault. It´s the devs that make it possible.

I think closing exploits and abusive strategies is important for many games where there is a scripted story that you don't want the player to bypass in inapropriate ways, or strict levels that you don't want the player to bypass, or a puzzle that is supposed to have a single solution and you don't want the puzzle broken or bypassed, or if the primary aim of the game is to provide a fair field for competitive play.

This game is a bit different. It has a decidedly open world sandbox vibe about it with no scripted story at all. Even the parts that are supposed to be puzzle like (Dungeon POIs) can easily be broken and bypassed due to the nature of the world. People have the freedom to play this game so many different ways (yes, even still today). The devs leave a lot of things to player choice. In fact, POI clearing is a great example of the dev's philosophy. They could put a trader zone around a POI once you enter and start exploring to force the player to play the puzzle as it is intended without doing any workarounds. Or they can do as they do now and leave it mostly to player choice. Some explore via the intended path, some destroy locked doors and break through ceilings and walls to leave the path, and some nerdpole to the roof and then find the treasure room immediately. If you leave the intended path you can experience oddities with the sleeper spawning and come upon enemies faced the wrong direction and see them in weird unnatural positions and places that you wouldn't witness if you had followed the path. If you go straight to the loot room you get all the rewards with none of the hastle.

TFP doesn't care. It's player choice and people are mostly happy with the choices they make. There are just a small percentage who continually make a choice they despise but just can't help themselves. Why should TFP make POIs like trader compounds simply to force everyone to follow the intended path just because of those few people who leave the path but hate themselves for it? They shouldn't as long as this game continues to claim sandbox elements.

Same goes for use of the trader. Abuse it or don't.

On that we can agree....hence it would be nice not get funneled, but it is what it is.

Well, just keep in mind that he doesn't feel funneled because of how he approaches the game. Fact.

He probably figures that people who do feel funneled are just doing it to themselves because of how they approach the game. Assumption.

 

[Roland]

Heh, ye, the spreadsheet for the current iteration.. no matter how many rows you fill, the answer is "Go Quest".

Only for those who care about progressing quickly. If a slower more natural progression is your choice then questing is just part of the gameplay and not dominant playstyle. You call that "gimping yourself" but that is because your perspective and priority seem to be on leveling up. Since your priority is to level up then, of course, doing anything other than questing is going to be sandbagging your game. 

There will always be something at the end of every row for you. If they change the balance so that questing is no longer the best path and instead mining edges out everything else as the most optimal way to level up then that will be the new complaint. For those who enjoy mining and hated questing they will be overjoyed. For those who loved questing but hate mining it will be the death of the game.  All of the authors of threads complaining about forced gameplay will change but the complaint will be the same. This isn't speculation. It's history. Since Alpha 11 the optimal way to level up has changed several times and the forum complaints followed those changes in exactly the way I describe. It is inevitable that one way to level up will outshine the rest and that is always labeled as the playstyle TFP is "forcing".

So the devs should just stick to what they like since there is never a solution possible that will please everyone as long as they want to maintain open world sandbox elements in their game. For sure they could fix things by imposing restrictions that prevent players from spamming whatever activity currently reigns as the optimal path but then that is ACTUALLY forcing players to play in a certain way compared to now where it is left up to player choice but since some individuals lack the will or desire do anything but optimize, they claim they are being forced.

My solution would be to try and balance things up some more and then add options to increase the number of quests needed to graduate to the next tier and to limit the number of quests that can be taken from a trader per week. This way people can diminish the power of questing in their game if they wish but for those who love the current influence that quests have on the game they can still have it.

For those who can't resist questing and hate it but also refuse to toggle the option to limit themselves....there's just no hope for those people. They want to min/max and they want to complain about it. That's their true game of choice.