This is why I've long thought that the devs should have increased the water-cost of crafting and farming instead of decreasing (or
trying to decrease) our ability to collect water. It is MUCH easier to believably (dare I say
realistically) tweak the numbers towards water
consumption, rather than trying to control water acquisition.
In other words, if they wanted water to be more of a "survival" thing, instead of saying we can't gather water in a freaking bucket anymore, they could have simple dialed up how much water we need for survival. I hate to criticize too harshly, but what TFP did regarding water was so freaking amateur-hour.
Let people gather water in the ways one would expect in a survival game!! If you want water to be more important to survival, then increase the amount we need to survive/craft without stomping all over immersion & environmental interaction!
I don't know why people believe this game is more survival than anything else. I don't understand the realism arguments either. They kickstarted with "basic survival" yet people think it's a main theme. Was it advertising or something?
If you can collect water conveniently, gather food easily, build a shelter or take over a POI, store resources and make defences, then you aren't surviving, you're just living. If you're not concerned about trying to get your next meal, drink, or a safe place to live then i can hardly call that survival. For me it's always been about surviving the zombies more than anything else.
I understand that people want common sense, to be able to walk up to a river and bring home water. For the sake of the video games balance however, i see why it's a problem to harvest all the water you want. They're trying to make each item have value, and that merit is underappreciated. When you gather rocks, it breaks and goes away. When you harvest furniture, scrap, salvage random objects, they all go away. The amount you get is limited, and you have to travel around to find more. Gathering unlimited water from a huge source like a river (or a single, movable water block) is obscene to try and balance. Making recipes cost more water would look ridiculous, like needing 10 water for one red tea. How is that more immersive? Make every jar only give +5 thirst so you end up chugging dozens a jars a day? Or should they make it tedious by having a long animation to fill a single jar? I'm more than okay with the current system if it makes water more valuable, and similar to all other loot.
The terms immersion and environmental interaction here is exaggeration. How many of you actually go to rivers to fill up jars of water to take home? I've watched tons of survival shows and i've never seen anyone survive using glass jars. Water is also heavy, carrying a few jars would suck let alone dozens, plus the mounds of stuff in the backpack. I can't fathom how anyone is immersed by this. Environmental interaction by walking up to a ditch and shlorping tons of water is giving it way too much credit. It's like pushing microwave buttons and calling it "Culinary Interaction" Raise your bar a bit.
Some survival games in my library:
Darkwood: No water.
Dying Light: Slurp sinks to get some health?
Kenshi: No thirst mechanic.
Palworld: No thirst mechanic.
Project Zomboid: Realistic water gathering and storage mechanics. Has always focused on realism unlike 7DTD.
Raft: Fill a cup with water then cook it. Somehow cooking salt water in a PLASTIC cup, super immersive. Eventually you get some cool water pump/piping mechanics and storage.
Rimworld: No water drinking mechanics.
Sons of the Forest: You can drink straight from water but it may make you sick. You can find and carry ONE large pot to manually collect water, then you make a fire to cook or just boil water. You can eventually make a canteen to hold some water. Soda cans around the island help with thirst. What you can carry and store is very limited when it comes to normal water, though soda can be hoarded too. There's also a weird turtle shell rain collector thing. Solid mechanics, but 7DTD is very different.
Subnautica: Grab bladderfish and magically (with advanced technology) zap it into a water bottle. Eventually use bleach to make better water. Water filtration machine to generate water (much like a dew collector)
Valheim: No thirst mechanics, other than getting crunk on brews.
I don't know what you guys expect in a survival game, or maybe you've played different ones than i have. I don't immediately think that i can just gather water forever from wherever. It's surprising when a "survival" game has any thirst mechanics at all. I think 7DTD's current water mechanics are reasonable and consistent with the game itself. TFP may yet add ways to harvest water if they can figure out how to keep it balanced. In my opinion, making sure items/resources have real value is more important than subjective "immersion" or environmental interaction in the game where literally everything is breakable/interactable.