Well, you are actually still looting toilets and keeping the water you find. Did you do that in mid- and late-game in A19 or A20? At least we didn't. Which means, at least for my group, that water in loot has more value now, even after day 3 or 4. But it is a solved problem.
But it is the 3-4 days you are complaining about. Though for novice players that might be more days, and for co-op games it might be more effort. My co-op group needs about 10-12 collectors (without mods) to be in a good spot and while we don't have actual problems with that, we need to collect a lot of polymers and craft duct tape for that.
Oh sure, but it still is something you have to built and (like a farm for food) reap once in a while. That simply makes water/glue/duct tape you find in loot something you might keep because it may be even less effort than the small grind of going through all the dew collectors.
Also you have to consider that players who have a higher and constant use of duct tape, AGI players relying on explosive arrows, need a lot more water than everyone else. For them water is a valuable resource even into late game. The grind for them has to be acceptably low which means for everyone else the grind is very very low.
Lets talk about the alternative you proposed: I would consider a resource to a recipe that is practically unlimited a useless "grind" resource for that recipe. Maybe more realistic, but a game designer would either remove that resource or change it to being limited. And even worse for a central product like duct tape. So I would count that as a slight negative and assume your alternative is WITH the change in the last paragraph included as a minimum for acceptance.
Positive is the immersion aspect. It is not realistic, but it works well as "movie grade science". And yes, super corn would be more valuable. If I forgot some other positive aspect please add to this list.
One thing that is a bit worse than the current method is that there is no need for the player to balance out his scarce water between food and glue production. For glue production he has rather unlimited amounts of water, the limit is bones. So all his clean water can be put into food producion.
Also the only source of water until you find or can craft anti-rad chems would be loot. Which is rather random and a problem for novice and co-op players. I have seen many posts of novice players having problems finding water, and drinking water from a lake is a safety net. Even veteran players, either in co-op games or games with loot percentage turned down have used that safety net. Well, that safety net is not absolutely necessary, one could simply say that bad luck means you die. Or give the trader clean water to sell at high prices (which would not help novice players in most cases, they won't have many dukes either).
Generally yes, your solution is a valid solution. Assuming the developers thought about a similar scheme they probably have applied different values to the advantages and disadvantages of those schemes and came to a different conclusion than you. I could have lived with both solutions. But since I value the immersion effect of being able to get water from a lake to nearly zero I would probably be leaning to the current solution because of the way water is a balancing act between food and glue and because dew collectors are another workstation and a more creative approach than your solution. I would really really prefer it if zombies were actually targetting workstations standing around so you had to protect them.
One problematic thing is that novice players need a way to drink from water as a last resort. Even veteran players do that from time to time
All very true what you say. And there are benefits to the introduction of dew collectors, no doubt about that. Especially mid- to late game where you have established yourself and reap the rewards of your early efforts: You'ved move beyond the primitive methods of your early days, you've basically established a tiny island of civilization.
In itself that can only be a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. It's what a game like this is partly about, kind of, isn't it? Overcoming challenges so they ceise to being challenges - and enabling you to turn your mind towards other challenges that have since come about. All well and good.
But like I said, my issue is with the - in my eyes - very hamfisted way in which TFP went to solve this problem.
And, on a side note, that and the lack of communication. I play mostly indie games, almost exclusively, and I have to say TFP really stands out when it comes to being tight-lipped, vague and disorganized in what they deem worthy to convey to the public.
In any case, you're talking about "movie grade science". Yes, absolutely. It's what a game that wants to be fun for the masses of us needs to be. But there is no movie grade science in not being able to gather water from a body of water, is there? It's like they had this goal in mind and then went and picked the most artificial, nonsensical way to achieve that goal. Because all they saw is the problem it solves but not the problem it creates.
That is my issue with TFP. They give me the impression that they don't really care. At least not from the top down, where the decisions are made. Like they want to make a game that has plenty of surface appeal, and that in the end that's all they want. To rake in the dukes. Like they're done with it.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm too harsh, but that's my impression.
As for newbies, yes, very valid point, in my opinion. But couldn't that be solved with a good, solid tutorial? As in, "In the beginning you will have trouble getting enough food and drinkable water. Looting kitchens or other places where you can expect food and water will help with that, as well as hunting animals. Also, you can drink water from any body of water by pressing "E" when you hold nothing in your hands."
What do you think is worse? A handholding tutorial like that, or gamey, shoehorning mechanical changes to the whole game?
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(speaking generally, I don't mean you. All survival games have repetitive recurring tasks one has to do to survive, some more, some less.)