In my experience with the water change since A21, I went almost all of A21 without a dew collector (as I don't like using traders) and in V1 and V2 I rarely use them. I find more than enough water and glue/tape in loot to not need to worry about water, the only time I need the extra water is when I want to use the rocket launcher, or I play with 25% loot.
I'd be happy if there was two kinds of water. Murky water, collected with a jar from various blocks around the world, like sinks, toilets, water coolers, etc. Can be boiled for safe consumption. You get the jar back in crafting and consumption.
Infected water, gathered from open water sources like in the old days, can be consumed for hydration but infects you plus the other normal murky water debuffs, but can only be used for glue production. You won't get the jar back this way, (or you get a dirty jar that can never be used for potable water)
This will bring back water survival and make jar economy a balancing act.
As for food, I hope food gets addressed at some point soon, for the last few years, food has been 100% optional, you can literally survive indefinitely without every eating a single thing, and v2.x doubled done of this. It makes zero sense for a game that is supposed to be a survival game for food to be a "nothing burger", pun very much intended.
I proved this fact in v2.0 where I survived for about 26 real hours, day 25, without eating anything. I died from zombies and not starvation.
Yes, and you also play insane and think it is too easy. At zero food you have almost no stamina AFAIK. A normal player will be killed by any 2 zombies he can't kill in ranged combat. And he won't have the ammo to do ranged combat all the time.
Someone played some souls-like game with a spoon instead of his hands (or something similar). The developers of that game didn't change the balance because he could do that.
