PC Glass Jars Question, A21

[Finster]

I'm on team "the water situation is ridiculous". Okay, I get the desire for "scarcity". At the same time, the game "realism" is degraded even further as I cannot so much as take a sip from a lake nor put water in a bucket. Furthermore, it makes farming a pointless task. Cool, I guess let me make 1000 meat and potato meals because I don't have water to cook the other recipes.

The reason 7 Days to Die is my most played game in the steam library is the procedurally generated maps for infinite worlds, the fully destructible world and general survival gameplay. Friends and I just want to get on a game, get to building and killing zombies. When game elements lack sense or become burdensome due to developer whims, I play it less. My daughter used to play the game a lot and now doesn't find as much enjoyment. She's mostly on project zomboid now. Instead of limits, the game should be expanding crafting elements and capabilities.

I do like the new POIs and the remodeling of some of the classics from several years ago, e.g. the underground cave. I like the updates to the workbench, forges, and spinning cement mixers. But for the love of jeebus, don't make things artificially "difficult" by breaking elements and making gameplay nonsensical. 

 

[Rotor]

However, free murky water on demand (if you're standing by a pond, river, or ditch) runs contrary to the early game's water scarcity goal. I think few oppose this goal. The real trick would be how to do both. I think there are options and I'd happily talk of them (again) if I had any sense it might be useful.

Can I ask why you feel it wont be useful?  Or are you miplying DevVille will not "fix" it?

 

[FranticDan]

At the same time, the game "realism" is degraded even further as I cannot so much as take a sip from a lake nor put water in a bucket.

You can LITERALLY do both of these!!
Also, once you unlock yucca smoothies, all water found in loot can use used exclusively for glue production.

 

[zztong]

Can I ask why you feel it wont be useful?  Or are you miplying DevVille will not "fix" it?

That was 6 months ago, and I may not be able to get back into the mindset.

I think what I was saying was that I had written and debated the matter extensively and figured I had reached a point where further discussion on my part was just wasting time. The opposed view has strong reasons why they cling to it and apparently can see an improvement in reaching their goals. They left me a way to "play it my way." What more should I say?

 

[Kethrian]

If they wanted to add a water shortage problem for early game, they could be part of the difficulty settings, reducing food and water drops from loot.  Then, players can adjust this to their preferences.

Removing glass jars doesn't make the early game harder, it makes a portion of the game more annoying.  Run to a ditch or pool, drink dirty water.  Deal with diarrhea.  Get helmet filter.  Still no problems with water to drink, unless the game spawns you in the middle of the desert with no open water for miles.
You know what the biggest need for water is?  Not drinking.  Glue production.  Glue, to make duct tape, to make repair kits and all kinds of equipment.  You need lots of glue.

If the devs really wanted to do something about balancing water, instead of removing jars, dirty water jars should be an additional ingredient in making concrete.  It's logical, reasonable, and uses up a lot more of an abundant resource.  Now, I'd say 1 jar per 10 concrete sounds like a starting point, so you don't have to become a sand baron just to cover all the sand needed for jars plus concrete.

 

[Survior]

water (and farming) was changed to extend the grind, this was done I guess because it's way easier than actual content.

 

[kitrana]

I'm not convinced it's going to be received well even after players actually try it, having the jars just disappear and not be able to be used to fill up is the kind of thing that will just pull players out of the experience. Every time they go to drink it's just going to be like "Oh here's that thing the developers are making me do" rather than just being immersed in the survival aspect. In real life I can fill a jar or cup or whatever and boil it to make it drinkable, having the game literally bend reality to make that impossible won't feel good even if it functionally still works. 

IMO there are more simple, believable ways to achieve the dev's goals;

Make a glassblowing pipe required to craft jars and make it as rare/expensive as desired, like on par with a crucible. Now a forge + sand no longer equals infinite jars by day 3. Making the jars take longer to craft also would make bulk crafting take more commitment.

Have Tin Cans of water not stack anymore. Can't seal them, can't transport them efficiently. Logical and makes a player have to decide between inventory space or having water for travel without hindering them when rehydrating at base. Gives some player choice in how they want to manage their hydration in the early game.

Make most looted water be in tin cans (for murky) or in cracked jars (for pure) with cracked jars being lost when used, hydrating slightly less, and with a chance to cause a bit of damage. Intact jars could be somewhat rare loot that would be quite valuable for players who have yet to acquire a glassblowing pipe, slowly weaning off the need for inefficient cans of water.

I'm willing to give the new system a fair shake but I can't imagine it not feeling jarring (ha) whenever I need to manage my thirst meter and have to do so in these new somewhat roundabout ways.

i come back after a long hiatus, as i do, and find this. NOPE! is there a mod that puts the jars back in?

Just try to think a few minutes about ways to circumvent your own scheme (and your others). Maybe you will find holes large enough for a truck to drive through.

You have been using gas cans and acid bottles in very similar systems for years now without noticing anything jarring I would guess.

those aren't survival related, i setup base in a desert usually and yucca juice needed yucca plus jars and was needed for that!

 

[Riamus]

i come back after a long hiatus, as i do, and find this. NOPE! is there a mod that puts the jars back in?

There was in A21. No idea if it was updated for 1.0.  Look in the mods forum or on mod sharing sites.

 

[Rotor]

 No idea if it was updated for 1.0. 

I havent even checked myself, but is Gold 1.0 stable?  Do modders move THAT quick?

 

[Riamus]

I havent even checked myself, but is Gold 1.0 stable?  Do modders move THAT quick?

Some mods have been updated, though may break during experimental.  But most do wait until stable.  I haven't looked for that one because I don't want jars back, so I have no idea the status of it.

 

[meganoth]

those aren't survival related, i setup base in a desert usually and yucca juice needed yucca plus jars and was needed for that!

You are replying to a more than a year old thread and posting, and argue against words that aren't even in the cited posting ("survival related", "yucca"). Do you really expect I read all those posts again to find out what my claims were? You have to explain your point with much more detail or even start a new thread to make clear what you are arguing.

One thing I am sure of, that when I mentioned gas cans and acid bottles, it was never to argue they are survival related, but to make clear that immersion is not a valid reason for rejecting that change because people have played with a similar no-container system in the game all the time and accepted it without complaining. They see it only because it is a change.

 

[cl0udburst]

If they wanted to add a water shortage problem for early game, they could be part of the difficulty settings, reducing food and water drops from loot.  Then, players can adjust this to their preferences.

Removing glass jars doesn't make the early game harder, it makes a portion of the game more annoying.  Run to a ditch or pool, drink dirty water.  Deal with diarrhea.  Get helmet filter.  Still no problems with water to drink, unless the game spawns you in the middle of the desert with no open water for miles.
You know what the biggest need for water is?  Not drinking.  Glue production.  Glue, to make duct tape, to make repair kits and all kinds of equipment.  You need lots of glue.

If the devs really wanted to do something about balancing water, instead of removing jars, dirty water jars should be an additional ingredient in making concrete.  It's logical, reasonable, and uses up a lot more of an abundant resource.  Now, I'd say 1 jar per 10 concrete sounds like a starting point, so you don't have to become a sand baron just to cover all the sand needed for jars plus concrete.

This is a great idea, and bonus points for realism since hydration is an essential part of getting a good concrete mix.

 

[Kartan]

Back on console after like 2 years and you’re telling me you thought removing glass jars was a good idea? We can’t craft/find ANY item to hold water? No water skins from leather?? Gotta be one of the most braindead changes I’ve ever seen in any game. “Survival” game where bodies of water are useless and you need dew collectors instead what an absolute joke. What’s also crazy is the amount of people here that support the change? As if there weren’t 1000 other ways to deal with water being too abundant? Come on devs you cant be this delusional…

 

[BFT2020]

And another glass jars thread

 

[Gronal]

And another glass jars thread

View attachment 31504

You had to have been expecting it with so many console users getting access to the game.


Also in actual response to OP, you'll find that many of us kinda dislike the change but are just resigned to the fact that TFP do what they want because it's their game. There were other solutions to water being too easy, but TFP chose this one. It is what it is.

 

[Fenris]

OP is not wrong though ,,, regardless of tone.

To OP, as was said above, many of us do not like the change. While the dew collectors are a neat idea, being next to a body of water you can drink but not collect in any way pretty much leaves me at a loss for words. Or at least words that would be allowed on a forum.

 

[meganoth]

Imagine a game where you have lots of enemies with guns better or just like the gun you have. But since the game needs to have scarce ammo and you having a pistol at start (for the game to be fun) killed enemies neither have a gun nor any ammo to loot when you check their corpses. Sounds familiar? Many shooters worked that way. Totally illogical but at the same time totally accepted by everyone. It is as it is.

Or other games where you are in a city with hundreds of houses. But even though you have stuff like dynamite to blow up your enemies you can't enter 99% of those buildings. How does that sound?  "Gotta be one of the most braindead" things you ever saw in a game? Nah, you fully accepted this, right? 

Now here you have bodies of water and can't geet water from them. Does that sound similar? IMHO it is exactly the same case. It is a game, and for reasons like balance, efficiency, FPS, coherence or development time some details are simply missing or impossible. Nobody really gives a f if he doesn't need something to complain about.

Now in 7d2d (as long as i have started playing the game and probably much longer) there were no containers at all except for water bottles. No empty gas cans, no empty plates or cups for meat stew and cakes, no empty bottles for acid. Sure, the icon of acid shows a container with acid, but there is no acid container in the game. THE ONLY expection where bottles. So TFP wanted to get rid of the only containers ever to be in the game and also make water scarce. And this was the best method to reach both goals.

And I have seen many proposals by players afterwards how to do it better but each and any of them only solved only one of the goals TFP had for this.

 

[zztong]

I could offer the OP a modlet that makes it possible to carry water away from a water source, but I don't think the consoles support mods. Is that right?

I'm with him though. While I can admire trying to make an early game struggle over water, removing prehistoric technology breaks with reality so bad that it is disorienting. Optimal play involves a number of leaps of logic.

 

[Kartan]

Imagine a game where you have lots of enemies with guns better or just like the gun you have. But since the game needs to have scarce ammo and you having a pistol at start (for the game to be fun) killed enemies neither have a gun nor any ammo to loot when you check their corpses. Sounds familiar? Many shooters worked that way. Totally illogical but at the same time totally accepted by everyone. It is as it is.

Or other games where you are in a city with hundreds of houses. But even though you have stuff like dynamite to blow up your enemies you can't enter 99% of those buildings. How does that sound?  "Gotta be one of the most braindead" things you ever saw in a game? Nah, you fully accepted this, right? 

Now here you have bodies of water and can't geet water from them. Does that sound similar? IMHO it is exactly the same case. It is a game, and for reasons like balance, efficiency, FPS, coherence or development time some details are simply missing or impossible. Nobody really gives a f if he doesn't need something to complain about.

Now in 7d2d (as long as i have started playing the game and probably much longer) there were no containers at all except for water bottles. No empty gas cans, no empty plates or cups for meat stew and cakes, no empty bottles for acid. Sure, the icon of acid shows a container with acid, but there is no acid container in the game. THE ONLY expection where bottles. So TFP wanted to get rid of the only containers ever to be in the game and also make water scarce. And this was the best method to reach both goals.

And I have seen many proposals by players afterwards how to do it better but each and any of them only solved only one of the goals TFP had for this.

I mean your first 2 examples are totally irrelevant lol, games that start you with a pistol and you can’t take other enemies weapons? They have to maintain a level of challenge somehow there’s 1 goal in those fps games shoot the enemy. You’re trying to compare that to a survival game having water storage mechanics lmao. And the second still lots of games to this day have many buildings you can’t enter- that’s because of engine limitations. It would be hard to model every interior of every building and maintain good performance. Again not sure how you can compare that to a survival game taking away basic water mechanics lmao. They could have a water skin that takes lots of leather to craft and it leaks over time. Or have a rare/expensive canteen you can buy/find as to not be able to craft an abundance of them. I’ve seen people mentioning giving the bottles a chance to shatter, but all of that would take time and effort. Easier to just remove everything and give us a barebones system.

I could offer the OP a modlet that makes it possible to carry water away from a water source, but I don't think the consoles support mods. Is that right?

No mods on console  thanks tho man

You had to have been expecting it with so many console users getting access to the game.


Also in actual response to OP, you'll find that many of us kinda dislike the change but are just resigned to the fact that TFP do what they want because it's their game. There were other solutions to water being too easy, but TFP chose this one. It is what it is.

I saw madmole in another thread talking about jars and water being leftover engine work previously from when it was more “Minecraft” like. What are they doing with the game then? What’s their final visions? I was always under the impression that this game was just that: Minecraft with zombies. That’s what it played like that’s what I introduced it to my friends as and they agreed. That’s not a bad thing? It’s unique and fun im not sure what their final vision of the game is. It seems playing this new version from the old Xbox one that it’s taken more of an FPS/Action genre, are they trying to make it more like dead island/ left for dead?? If so what a terrible idea. Minecraft zombies is what makes it unique and that’s what me and my friends will always appreciate it for. 

 

[zztong]

No mods on console  thanks tho man

Some background for you in case it is news, as this was a hot topic of discussion in the A21 release about a year ago...

None of the other consumables has a container. Gasoline, for instance, the gas can icon just represents the liquid, not a container. So, water is just depicted as a glass jar but they're not really trying to have a container that gets filled. Thus, while the "empty glass jar" was what we had, the issue of carrying around water doesn't really depend on having empty jars.

Instead, I focus on the ability to carry water away from a water source. If the game is just going to assume containers are always available for things like gasoline, then to me the assumption is also true for water. Thus, I think the best outcome is that when you're at a lake, you should be able to drink (currently possible) or carry away some water which would look like a jar of water.

However, TFP wants some early game survival challenges and struggling for potable water is part of that. I can embrace the goal. I love the goal, actually. I just don't share much enthusiasm over the implementation. They would have you go into POIs and find water as loot, and that is currently a viable method of play. Once you find a cooking pot, this quickly evolves into purifying the water you find. Once you get a little knowledge about workstations (2 magazines) you unlock a Dew Collector which produces water. Over time, you'll likely develop a number of Dew Collectors (and improve the features of your existing Dew Collectors) and eliminate water scarcity from your challenges.

It isn't a bad minigame once you know how to play it. Its just that they way they deal with water sources (pools, lakes, rivers) and the initial sources of water (POIs) isn't realistic enough to align with a player's real-world experiences, so it is confusing.

My preferred approach is to make it possible to carry water away from a source, but then draw out the struggle over purifying that water, so I face dysentery for much longer in the game. The normal "blue" water still has a 6% dysentery chance and only the very high end water is truly potable, or you can brew teas which requires more time and resources.