PC Alpha 21 Discussion Overflow

And I agreed with Roland on a few points he made but he started off with such an attitude and misrepresented my arguments so often that it was just a thoroughly pointless conversation all things considered. How one carries themselves in an argument does matter after all.


If I misrepresented your arguments then I'm sorry. If I came at you too intensely and with a disrespectful attitude I apologize. I get that you love the game. I get that you are worried about some of the announced features of A21. There are some oft repeated accusations leveled at TFP that are not fair or truthful and when you mentioned a couple of them, it became my focus to show how they are false. I probably went too nuclear in that regard.

 
Maybe it isn't always malice when people misunderstand you, maybe you sometimes just explain yourself in ways that can be misleading.


Fair enough. But I made an effort to clarify my statements more thoroughly after the first 1-2 times, and it kept happening. So maybe at the start, but eventually it was rather blatant misrepresentation, since I was still being strawmanned for early less clear statements that I had long since clarified in detail.

 
I'm really curious on what day the Dew Collector becomes available as it will also effectively be unlimited potable water even if still supplemented by purifying murky water found in POIs. I thought early reports were that might be around Day 4 as well. Rather than go to a river/lake/pool for water, folks will harvest their dew collector farm.


The dew collector recipe becomes available on I think your 3rd Forge Ahead magazine. Then it just depends on how quickly you can get the materials to craft it. I'd say that Day 3-4 is a good average to have one dew collector in place. One dew collector will still require the player to make choices about how best to use the water they have. It won't get to the way it is in A20 until you have multiple dew collectors-- and that's fine, in my opinion. The goal isn't to keep water being a struggle forever, it is to create a progression from no water to all water needs solved.

The changes to A21 make that journey an interesting one based on my own experience.

 
The dew collector recipe becomes available on I think your 3rd Forge Ahead magazine. Then it just depends on how quickly you can get the materials to craft it. I'd say that Day 3-4 is a good average to have one dew collector in place. One dew collector will still require the player to make choices about how best to use the water they have. It won't get to the way it is in A20 until you have multiple dew collectors-- and that's fine, in my opinion. The goal isn't to keep water being a struggle forever, it is to create a progression from no water to all water needs solved.

The changes to A21 make that journey an interesting one based on my own experience.


Can I ask how this works now? I think maybe there's something I'm not getting.

From the notes (and discussion) the only change I see is that there are no more glass jars. Without glass jars, this means you can no longer get murky water from water sources (lakes, rivers, water in POIs, etc). I guess in A21 you can drink directly from those sources (with penalties) but you can't get a container of murky water to transport.

But it seems like this is the only change, right? It means that you have to either get murky water from dew collectors, or get it from the same places as always (toilets, kitchen cupboards, etc).

Is that right, or am I misunderstanding something?

 
Can I ask how this works now? I think maybe there's something I'm not getting.

From the notes (and discussion) the only change I see is that there are no more glass jars. Without glass jars, this means you can no longer get murky water from water sources (lakes, rivers, water in POIs, etc). I guess in A21 you can drink directly from those sources (with penalties) but you can't get a container of murky water to transport.

But it seems like this is the only change, right? It means that you have to either get murky water from dew collectors, or get it from the same places as always (toilets, kitchen cupboards, etc).

Is that right, or am I misunderstanding something?
Unless I'm mistaken, dew collectors produce clean water, not murky.

 
Unless I'm mistaken, dew collectors produce clean water, not murky.


OK, that's fine, but then I guess I don't understand why folks are so against this change.

You could always find plenty of murky water. In the vast majority of my playthroughs, empty glass jars were mainly used to smelt in the forge into sand. There were very few times that I needed to use them to get more murky water. And if I couldn't do that, it's not like I would die from thirst, I just wouldn't have enough murky water to boil into clean water for meat stew.

The patch notes mention glue but it's not like there was ever any shortage of glue in the game. So I guess, I'm wondering why anyone would be upset about this.

 
The patch notes mention glue but it's not like there was ever any shortage of glue in the game. So I guess, I'm wondering why anyone would be upset about this.


That depends on your game settings. No loot respawn, low loot abundance. But with that said it does say glue making is in consideration so I'm sure it will be fine.

......

But to add... you will still be able to find murky water in loot. You just don't get an empty jar back from it anymore. Dew collector is the same will collect the water and it will show clean jar of water but when used it is gone with no empty jar back.

.......

I see both sides. It is what it is but it is water. Ark, atlas, conan, dayz, scum, project zomboid and so on. All these plus a few more liquids isn't an issue really but are part of survival. I don't know it isn't that big of deal it is water and you loose immersion doing it this way for what 4 to 10 game days then your fine again? Yes we know game play out beats immersion. But as said by 4th day you have a dew collector so what by day 10 you probably will have several. So it doesn't seem to add that much more value to loose the immersion over.

On the flip side. Is it that big of deal no. As said it is what it is. Do they get a little praise for not being like other survivor games and doing something different with water. Sure tilt my hat. So I can deal with either not mad but not happy just meh about it. 

 
The patch notes mention glue but it's not like there was ever any shortage of glue in the game. So I guess, I'm wondering why anyone would be upset about this.
It depends on your play style or specialization. For example, I had a playthrough with an agility built. I primarily used exploding crossbow bolts as my defense during horde night. I used about 100 of the exploding crossbow bolts per horde night, which required duct tape to craft. I would never get the necessary amount of tape or glue by looting alone.

It also depends on whether you craft your equipment or not. Glue or duct tape is needed for many items.

I am curious how much the consumption of glue or tape will increase in A21. The idea behind the new crafting skills is that we will craft our equipment not only once but several times over the course of the game.
 

 
OK, that's fine, but then I guess I don't understand why folks are so against this change.

You could always find plenty of murky water. In the vast majority of my playthroughs, empty glass jars were mainly used to smelt in the forge into sand. There were very few times that I needed to use them to get more murky water. And if I couldn't do that, it's not like I would die from thirst, I just wouldn't have enough murky water to boil into clean water for meat stew.

The patch notes mention glue but it's not like there was ever any shortage of glue in the game. So I guess, I'm wondering why anyone would be upset about this.


The need for glue is highly variable. If you want to play as an "explosive" archer on horde night then (before A21 at least) you need a lot more glue than typical. People are adverse to any change for the worse, if they have played with unlimited explosive bolts for a few alphas they expect to be able to make unlimited amounts again.

Even without that, in a typical vanilla game my friends and I produced a lot of food and drinks, much much more than was necessary. And that needed a massive amount of bottles as well. Consequently it wasn't really seldom that we made jars in the hundreds and wasted them for food and drinks we just collected in chests to wither away. Not sure if some players even count that subconciously as water they need.

But mainly explosive arrows and bolts are mentioned as the area where a constant and high amount of water is needed. If you compare to the nearly umlimited amount of bullets you can produce (since dukes make the only problematic resource unlimited as well) then explosive arrows could be at a disadvantage now depending on balance

 
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Alll good answers. I don’t think I can add anything except to say that players are going to have a period of time early on when they’ll have to choose how they use their water. There won’t be an unlimited supply until later and only then  if they have built the infrastructure for it. 

Water is less plentiful in loot in A21 than it is in A20 @khzmusik

 
OK, that's fine, but then I guess I don't understand why folks are so against this change.


I don't care about the change from empty to virtual jars.

I support the survival struggle related to a scarcity of potable water. I appreciate the dew collector being in the game. I worry the capability it provides enters the game too early. Of course, I won't know until I've played A21 for a while.

I'm not a fan of being unable to transport murky water away from a water source. I think it is both irrational and takes away some interesting game play.

I'm hopeful that XML changes will allow a change from "clicking on a water source makes the player drink" to "clicking on a water source harvests a jar of murky water."

 
Watch this quick video on how to edit the game yourself  - Very EASY  step by step guide
How about only making one post of your video and in the mods tutorial section, rather than 4 posts all over the place self promoting, even going as far as posting it in a help thread for the gaming consoles?  Wonder if you are a bot or trying to spam the forums…..

 
I'm hopeful that XML changes will allow a change from "clicking on a water source makes the player drink" to "clicking on a water source harvests a jar of murky water."


I'd like to propose a compromise between this idea and the announced direction for A21.

  1. Clicking on a water source would harvest 1 jar of "putrid water."
  2. Drinking putrid water would be the same idea as "murky water" but with a much, much higher chance of dysentery (50%?) and even more health loss (-10?).
  3. Purification of putrid water into murky water would take a chemistry station, require coal (like mineral water; representing a filter) and perhaps an extended processing time. (30 secs?)
In this way, the A21 early game experience might remain as intended. The late game players can still scale up glue production via more chemistry stations and with more time invested gathering water if not using dew collectors, and humanity can still carry water from a lake as they have done since before recorded history.

 
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I can already see people sitting at a body of water spamming the E key for a backpack full of water jars. 😅
How is that actually with the dew collectors? In a screenshot that fataal posted once it looked like the dew collectors can only hold 3 jars of water. Is that correct or can they hold more so you don't have to empty them every day.

 
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I'd like to propose a compromise between this idea and the announced direction for A21.

  1. Clicking on a water source would harvest 1 jar of "putrid water."
  2. Drinking putrid water would be the same idea as "murky water" but with a much, much higher chance of dysentery (50%?) and even more health loss (-10?).
  3. Purification of putrid water into murky water would take a chemistry station, require coal (like mineral water; representing a filter) and perhaps an extended processing time. (30 secs?)
In this way, the A21 early game experience might remain as intended. The late game players can still scale up glue production via more chemistry stations and with more time invested gathering water if not using dew collectors, and humanity can still carry water from a lake as they have done since before recorded history.


I don't think this is a bad suggestion but it does add another whole layer of water to the system which I doubt the developers will want to do at this point. This idea might gain more traction once we see if all the imagined glue shortages are actually real glue shortages and whether those glue shortages actually make playstyle unviable or whether those glue shortages simply make playstyles more challenging.

If it turns out that the worst case scenarios we've been seeing people wonder about become reality then suggestions such as this one will have greater traction and at the very least could be a popular mod for those who find glue production in the later game to not be where they like it regardless of whether it is still doable but just more challenging.

How is that actually with the dew collectors? In a screenshot that fataal posted once looked like the dew collectors can only hold 3 jars of water. Is that correct or can they hold more so you don't have to empty them every day.


They hold three jars max.

 
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How is that actually with the dew collectors? In a screenshot that fataal posted once it looked like the dew collectors can only hold 3 jars of water. Is that correct or can they hold more so you don't have to empty them every day.


I was referring to zzTong's idea that he mentioned... 😅

 
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