PC Glass Jars Question, A21

[AH64_Jimbo]

we can now drink by hand out of available water sources and that buildable dew collectors are being brought in. But -- what I can't find clear information on is how we carry water from here on...? Instead of jars does it come in bottles, or do can we make a canteen?

This is a throwback to an older Alpha (Alpha 14? 15?) and is how the game used to work; You could drink directly from water sources like rivers and lakes at risk (like contracting giardia). The jars would simply disappear and an empty jar would never spawn in your inventory; It would be consumed entirely. This changed in subsequent Alphas that we know now. The big difference is that with Alpha 21 they added the dew collector to passively gain jars of clean water, and it seems like clean water is going to be more rare.

In short, in Alpha 21;

You can drink directly from water sources

Jars of murky water will be an item

Jars of clean water will be an item

Empty jars will be removed entirely

We're urged to give this approach an honest try in A21, which I plan to do. I encourage you to embrace the experimentation and eventually provide useful feedback.

Agreed wholeheartedly, zztong. This isn't the first time TFP have made changes that have initially upset the community, but have ended up being a good thing overall.

Remember that zombies used to de-spawn into gore blocks? When TFP removed those, people complained, "How are we supposed to get bones now for glue?!?" but TFP compensated by adding additional gore blocks to the world environment plus you can always harvest bones from animals. The supply of bones wasn't drastically reduced. The change helped out tremendously with both immersion and performance. The same could be true for the drinking water system in Alpha 21.

The point is, don't knock it until you try it. 

I don't have a problem with removing the jars and cans.  They were never really needed for anything.  You could have had the same mechanics without them.

This is a good point; Removing empty jars not only frees up inventory space, but it also removes a step when obtaining clean water or crafting other items (like Molotov cocktails). The silver lining to having empty jars removed is that you will NOT have to manage empty jars!

 

[Vaeliorin]

Agreed wholeheartedly, zztong. This isn't the first time TFP have made changes that have initially upset the community, but have ended up being a good thing overall.

Remember that zombies used to de-spawn into gore blocks? When TFP removed those, people complained, "How are we supposed to get bones now for glue?!?" but TFP compensated by adding additional gore blocks to the world environment plus you can always harvest bones from animals. The supply of bones wasn't drastically reduced. The change helped out tremendously with both immersion and performance. The same could be true for the drinking water system in Alpha 21.

Sure, but it got rid of gore blocks building up, allowing zombies to overtop your walls, which was a neat mechanic.  I mean, yeah, you could destroy them, but if you weren't attentive you could easily end up with zombies in your base.

 

[Old Crow]

On that note, how come we don't save the dishes from all the various stews and such that we eat?

Serious question though - are empty cans going away as well? They're only used for two recipes right now, and those can of course be changed to no longer require them, much like how the recipes requiring glass jars are being changed.

 

[Riamus]

On that note, how come we don't save the dishes from all the various stews and such that we eat?

Serious question though - are empty cans going away as well? They're only used for two recipes right now, and those can of course be changed to no longer require them, much like how the recipes requiring glass jars are being changed.

Yes, cans are going away too.

 

[Pernicious]

If we were going for full realism, I would prefer that we started with say a 2L canteen. It is a "stack" of 2000 (ml). It starts off clean. We can drink from it by using 100 stacks at once.

You can refill it with murky water from murky water sources, or clean water from clean water sources.  If you mix clean water with murky water it all becomes murky.

Once you have a work bench, you can craft a barrel (which could be a component of a rain collector), and tip the contents in. You could also have larger canteens as a crafted item.

Once it's empty, you still have a "stack of zero" water that looks like a canteen.

How you handle non-water drinks is a completely different argument. Maybe those containers become empty cans, but since they don't have a lid can't carry water away from the source, or can't stack.

But really, I don't mind trivial "immersion" breaks like this as long as it's reasonably consistent.

 

[meganoth]

If there were open body pools, rivers, and lakes of crude oil, then I probably would question why the gas cans only exist when convenient, preventing me from gathering it

to refine.

There are laptops you can't turn on at all (even though you have electricity). There are refrigerators you can't use. There are busses on the road but you will never be able to use or repair one for no reason at all. There are lakes but you can't even make a simple raft float on it. Do you question all that every time you play? I would assume you actually questioned all those limitations at least once. But then forgot about them completely for hundreds of hours of playtime and had no problem at all with accepting that for example there are just 5 vehicles you can build. That you can't have two people ride a minibike. That you can't just take a picture from a wall and move it to your base. That you can't trip a zombie.

There are so many limitations in this game and you will question them from time to time or make a joke about it. And a minute later have forgotten about them and simply accept them for the next hundred hours of playtime.

Another example: You may say (in talk with your friends for example) you filled up your minibike with gas **cans**, not with gas. But lets look at it more closely. To fill a minibike you need (??) 50 or 100 or 500 units of what the game shows as gas cans. It obviously can't be 500 gas cans you fill that single minibike with. Does that constantly throw you out of immersion? Surely not, in actual gameplay you simply think of **units** of gas you fill up the bike with. You don't **think** of there being gas cans, you only think of (units of) gas. 

It's not a strictly realism thing per se, it's a matter of thinking "There is the thing that I need (water) and I know that dirty water, which comes in jars, can be purified via boiling, but the only thing preventing me from doing so freely are these damn Schrödinger's Jars"

You will never again notice jars as an existing entity, let alone Schrödinger Jars that disappear. You will simply think of water, just like you only think of gas or acid that you need to operate a vehicle or build a battery.

And I'm sure my ideas could be circumvented, long craft times are easily worked around by having multiple crafting stations and I've had my share of Day 2 crucibles, but when that happens it's just a "Neat, we got real lucky this playthough" moment and still requires some effort to actually utilize. I also imagine the new water system can be partially circumvented if the player is willing to travel around multiple traders to buy their filters, more so if they acquire a water filter helmet mod early.

I am not talking about circumvention by experienced players looking for loopholes. I am talking about everyone simply having no water scarcity at all without any effort.

Maybe you did not specify your ideas in detail. Maybe in your mind you did all the other changes so that one of your ideas could really work to limit water sensibly. Maybe not. Just as listed by you the changes you listed in your first idea for example won't work, not without some other changes, maybe not at all. 

If you want we can make a simple test. Just take your first idea and list all the changes you would do to make it work for A20. If what you would have changed is all listed in that paragraph of yours above, say so. Otherwise add whatever else needs to be changed.

Then if I find something so water is not limited at all, or limited to unplayability, or anything else that does not align with what we know the devs want, I win the argument. If not, you win it.

Maybe I've just played too many Blizzard games over the last few years that whenever I see devs feeling the need to explain why something is going to be fun, I immediately assume it's not going to be fun and that we're in for a bad time. And I'm sure some people are going to love the new system, what I doubt is that it's going to be a net positive on the game. It's obviously too late to change course now and as I've mentioned I'm willing to play with it, but it's hard not to be doubtful when myself and my 4 other friends who play are all sharing the same wary thoughts.

Whether it will be fun for you that water is made scarce is quite a different matter. Net positive? No idea, that depends on the tastes of the majority of players this game has.

 

[Roland]

I do think it is unfair to say water progression before was non-existent compared to a new system that only takes an hour to overcome.

That is not what I said or at least not what I meant. What I meant was that it only took me an hour to make the adjustment between the A20 thinking and the A21 thinking. I never thought about jars again after about an hour of play because I was able to make the adjustment in my mind that empty jars worked just like the rest of the empty containers.

The water progression definitely takes longer than an hour of playtime. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[zztong]

That is not what I said or at least not what I meant.

My apologies if I misinterpreted what you wrote.

 

[fragtzack]

I prefer the solution in another survival game, all water bottle/canteen containers decay from use. 

 

[Cosian]

I see a lot of folks really trying to be forthcoming here and cave to the devs saying well we will try to keep an open mind and try it.  That said, it just doesn't make any sense.  Your trying to sell it as a quality of life thing because you don't have to deal with containers??  It just does not make logical sense that you drink something out of a jar and then you cannot fill the jar back up.  Part of any survival game is obtaining purified water.  But here you cannot collect water and boil it. Hmmmm.  Look, there are a plethora of settings people can use if they want to make their game more challenging all ready.  Why mess with this realistic approach to hydrating yourself.  It's like an anti-quality of life thing.

Let me be clear .... I don't like it ...

 

[Riamus]

You still collect water and boil it.  It just isn't collected at a water source like a lake or river.  It isn't meant to be realistic but to help water be more of a challenge rather than having all you'll ever need on day 1.  Considering you can drink right from the water source now, hydration isn't really changed.  It just isn't boiled if you drink it directly.  Water for drinking and cooking is not really a problem past the first day or two.  The only reason there is any issue is for people who use a lot of duct tape.

As far as the containers, I'm glad they are gone.  They were pointless, imo.  Even if you wanted the old method, there wasn't any need for having empty jars.  It could have easily been done without them.

 

[Cosian]

You still collect water and boil it.  It just isn't collected at a water source like a lake or river.  It isn't meant to be realistic but to help water be more of a challenge rather than having all you'll ever need on day 1.  Considering you can drink right from the water source now, hydration isn't really changed.  It just isn't boiled if you drink it directly.  Water for drinking and cooking is not really a problem past the first day or two.  The only reason there is any issue is for people who use a lot of duct tape.

As far as the containers, I'm glad they are gone.  They were pointless, imo.  Even if you wanted the old method, there wasn't any need for having empty jars.  It could have easily been done without them.

So what happens after the first day or two that makes not a problem?

 

[Vaeliorin]

So what happens after the first day or two that makes not a problem?

You get several dew collectors and lots of murky water from looting.

Or you're like me this playthrough and have 4 water purifier mods by day 7....

 

[Riamus]

So what happens after the first day or two that makes not a problem?

As Vaeliorin said, you'll have dew collectors if you need them and you'll find plenty of murky water and other drinks.  Now, if you are playing 8 players and not everyone wants to try and find water, it might take longer to get in a good place with water.  But it is pretty easy at 1-2 people.  For larger groups where some don't want to loot, if they are all willing to sacrifice the first 2-3 days for looting in order to get water in a good place for them, then they should be fine playing the rest of the game without everyone looting.

 

[Roland]

Part of any survival game is obtaining purified water. 

Not necessarily. There is a wide spectrum of hydration survival and how it is represented across many different survival games. There are even survival games where thirst isn't differentiated from food at all. 7 Days to Die has no obligation to be just like any or even every survival game out there. The developers of some games just ignore water survival altogether. Other developers of other games put tons of detail into water survival to the point that it is basically a sim for hydrating the body. 7 Days to Die has chosen to make some aspects of hydration an abstraction. 

You don't have to like it but please just know that "any survival game" is not some bible for how particular survival games must depict thirst and drinking. There is a lot of wiggle room based on all the different ways different games choose to do it.

 

[Razorpony]

You can sit there and say that the hydration mechanic isn't meant to be realistic but is it meant to be absurd? Because that's where we're at right now. I can go out into the desert with a shovel and a pick and dig up oil shale, bring it back to my base, run it through a redneck refinery, and have gasoline pure enough to run a truck or motorcycle. What I can't figure out how to do is walk out the door and down to the lake to fill up a bottle. If the water is from a toilet? No problem. Maybe I just need to make the lake into a giant toilet. 

 

[Gideon]

You eat the jar when you drink the water in it. It is then exuded through your sweat glands and evaporates.

The jars condense and reassemble in the dew collectors. It's not just water vapor they collect, but also jar vapor.

Conservation of mass.

 

[BFT2020]

I see a lot of folks really trying to be forthcoming here and cave to the devs saying well we will try to keep an open mind and try it.  That said, it just doesn't make any sense.  Your trying to sell it as a quality of life thing because you don't have to deal with containers??  It just does not make logical sense that you drink something out of a jar and then you cannot fill the jar back up.  Part of any survival game is obtaining purified water.  But here you cannot collect water and boil it. Hmmmm.  Look, there are a plethora of settings people can use if they want to make their game more challenging all ready.  Why mess with this realistic approach to hydrating yourself.  It's like an anti-quality of life thing.

Let me be clear .... I don't like it ...

I embraced it when it was announced during A21 development that I modded out glass jars (and tin cans) from A20 just to experience it before hand.  Haven't miss them since.

Why does logic only apply to glass jars but nobody had an issue with magical gas cans or oil bottles?  Where did all those plates and bowls go after we eat our food and where are they when we make them?

The thing is, you can make this game as complex or simple as you want through modding.  You can make it as realistically possible if you want to.

But if we are going to argue that something is not logical or realistic, then shouldn't it apply across the board?  How many people really want to plant corn seeds in Spring in game and then turn around and harvest it in the Fall? 

 

[Cosian]

I embraced it when it was announced during A21 development that I modded out glass jars (and tin cans) from A20 just to experience it before hand.  Haven't miss them since.

Why does logic only apply to glass jars but nobody had an issue with magical gas cans or oil bottles?  Where did all those plates and bowls go after we eat our food and where are they when we make them?

The thing is, you can make this game as complex or simple as you want through modding.  You can make it as realistically possible if you want to.

But if we are going to argue that something is not logical or realistic, then shouldn't it apply across the board?  How many people really want to plant corn seeds in Spring in game and then turn around and harvest it in the Fall? 

Well its really not the same is it?  There isn't gas or oil laying around in pools to fill up a gas can so its really not an apples to apples comparison.  Really no purpose for lakes and rivers now.  Anyway, I have accepted the current condition but my jury is still out and whether it made the game better.  Probably more important to be near a town than a lake or river.  Finally I am getting plenty of murky in the nearby town and  I guess if you think you are not getting enough water you can mod or set the respawn days down.  It's all good. 

 

[Riamus]

Well its really not the same is it?  There isn't gas or oil laying around in pools to fill up a gas can so its really not an apples to apples comparison.  

Not oil but you collected gas from cars and gas barrels and gas pumps.  What did you put it into?  When you emptied all of these, where did the containers go?  People are really only complaining because it is harder to get enough water for mass producing glue.  I'd be willing to bet that at least 90% of the people upset over glass jars being gone are those who mass produce glue.  You also don't see these same people complaining about empty cans being gone.  Very good indication why they are complaining and it isn't due to realism.

Still, I'm glad you're finding enough water now.