Jars, Dew Collectors, And Survival

[Kalnazzar]

Yes, I know the post talks about several things, and with alternative solutions, I have only mentioned that paragraph, because I see that some people take the opportunity to criticize anything, which can later affect how TFP develops the game, you have mentioned that the players who have complained is because the range of the zombies is rare, in reality they complain because they can not cheese the game like before, for example before you build 2 blocks and you can hit the zombie without danger, now there is some risk of being hit, I never use that technique, but this affects normal gameplay, if you climb a wall or a fence, and I like it to be difficult and challenging, that's why I mentioned the paragraph, not your post about the water jars or the alternatives that I think some are good. and yes, the game has neglected survival in the latest versions, it's just that I want the real criticisms to be separated from the people who criticize everything.

Bro, are you for real? You’re telling me if something was trying to eat you alive, you wouldn’t be scrambling up a wall, a tree, a gate, anything, to get out of reach? That’s just basic survival sense. Yeah, there are exploits in the game, but moving out of reach isn’t one of them. Selling rocks for infinite dukes? Exploit. Floating garage doors, you can hop onto? Exploit. Glitching into solid blocks so you’re safe inside while still able to shoot out? Exploit. Climbing to safety, using height, building smart bases.. no, that’s survival, not cheesing. I’d rather they added a mutated mole-type zombie that can dig quickly so the rest of the horde follows it into underground bases, instead of just giving every zombie “drill hands.” Stuff like that shows how TFP are more focused on forcing their way or the highway instead of fixing the actual exploits.

 

[Jost Amman]

It’s still a large amount of players, maybe not the whole community, but our feedback, requests, and ideas should still be respected and listened to. We’re still part of the community. Jars were in the game for 16+ alphas, and not once did the devs ask for feedback about removing them. Then, out of nowhere, they were just gone. Players gave tons of negative feedback, and instead of actually listening, it keeps getting brushed off as “just the vocal minority.” So what, because we’re not the whole community, we don’t matter at all? That’s not how you treat the people who supported this game.

The Kickstarter even promised that this wouldn’t just be their game, it would be everyone’s game, built together with community input. But the way concerns are dismissed now makes it feel like that promise was just a line to get funding. Whenever players voice issues, the answer is always the same dismissive excuse: “vocal minority.” Yet if streamers complain, fixes happen almost immediately.

The thing is, no one said jars made the game too easy couldn’t be addressed, they could have been improved instead of outright removed. Make the recipe cost more, extend the crafting time, require the crucible to craft, there were plenty of ways to balance it. The water purification process itself could’ve been made harder too, with more steps included. That’s how you refine a system instead of gutting it. And the dew collector? Sure, it should still exist for players who enjoy the AFK, no-interaction style of water farming. Nothing would change for them, they can sit and wait for their water as they always have. But for those of us who enjoy interacting with the world, scavenging, and actually crafting, we should still have that option too. That’s what a sandbox game is supposed to be about: options and player choice, not a single narrow path to achieve one objective.

I never said you don't matter, and I kind of agree with you that the water issue could have been solved without removing jars.

But, if you are an old enough player, you should remember that the same happened when they removed sticks and sharp stones from the game.
Some people, especially veteran players, complained a lot at the time, but then the complaining subsided and now nobody remembers how "great" (joking) sticks and sharp stones were.

 

[Jost Amman]

Well, I do like being right; but that also means I do like being corrected - that just makes me more right in the future
I do troll on occasion, but only when deserved... so, no; I'm arguing in honesty.

I dunno; for the new player vs experienced player experience, I don't think a game is better for having convoluted mechanics that you have to learn before that system becomes trivial. That's just confusing for .. confusion's sake. And once you learn it, the mechanic is pointless, if it was trivial all along.

That is phrased in an exaggerated manner, but I'd rather the game be designed to be challenging for Everyone in places, and trivial in others. Of course, an experienced player will have an advantage; but a system can be made to be reasonably challenging with all the experience, while not prohibitively so for a newbie.

The tin can was perhaps the easiest example of such a design. You spawned in with a can of food, you ate it, and could use the can from it to boil water, one drink at a time. Once you figured that out, you would never Die of thirst, not even get too frustrated with it; but experienced players would end up not needing to use it, ever. It remained a fun quirk you could still do later, but never got in the way of the "actual game mechanics"; which was "jars" back then.

So, while the old system might have been less challenging for newbies; I don't think that's necessarily a good change, or a good design goal. Ultimately a game experience should be balanced to something between "decent utilization" and "fully exploiting" of all the systems in the game as they are, and in that sense, nothing changed.

I agree with you, but that's all nice words, good intentions and theory.

You speak of a water survival system that is challenging and/or meaningful both for rookie and casual players AND veteran players... do you have an actual idea on what such a great system could be?

If you tell me a good one you'd also be right. So that's a plus for you!

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 1:02 AM

Why would you assume I am the minority?

Because you're here complaining.

 

[Jost Amman]

I did read it. I ignored quoting it because it was irrelevant. Murky water found in POIs has nothing to do with experience. There is tons of it to be found. All you need to do is boil it. So I still think there is too much water to be found in the game even if you never build a dew collector (until you need glue then you would spam them).

Not having jars because people are too stupid to build lots of dew collectors or loot POIs and boil water doesn't make a convincing argument against jars. Maybe I am missing something. If I am feel free to correct me, but I think this is the gist of what you are saying.

No, it's not irrelevant. It depends on where you go looting and knowing the places in the world.
If you go around casually looting stuff on the ground or maybe here and there looting random POIs, then you'd only find a limited amount of murky water each day (unless you're playing with different loot settings than me).

Some casual players maybe even loot POIs only partially because they run away or die at the first tough encounter.
Some of them stay near the area they spawned in, for example, and don't move to a town right away, so they have less looting chances.

You see? You're not taking into account, in my opinion, that you're a veteran player and you already know how to play in the most effective way.

But you're right that there's enough water in the game to not even need a dew collector for basic survival, and you actually made TFP point here.
TFP want players to be able to survive with water but to work for it. Next step is "water independence", and that's the dew collector.

 

[theFlu]

You speak of a water survival system that is challenging and/or meaningful both for rookie and casual players AND veteran players... do you have an actual idea on what such a great system could be?

If you tell me a good one you'd also be right. So that's a plus for you!

Well, I've drafted one a couple times here; but since no-one knows what TFP wants, drafting them is rather pointless.

- The jar system was better in its realism, and freedom (it didn't force you to loot POIs, and thus work as a guide rail to the quest-loop-railroad). Bringing that back with the tin cans would be an honest upgrade in my eyes.
- Bringing that back without the requirement for empty containers would be a tad too simple, you'd literally be solved with a cooking pot, but even that would be an improvement IMO. It's just certainly solved on D1 and that'd be fine too.

If I'd design one, I'd start by removing all water from POIs (some coolers etc could have ready made drinks, but toilet water would be there for realism's sake, not as a planned source). Get it from lakes. Then bake whatever "gating system" TFP wants into the water purification step.. "get safe-ish drinkable water via boiling", "get craftable water via distilling". Timer for distilling could line up with the Water Portals we have now, boiling could be a little faster than that.

And I would Not make water processing into a proper "gating feature" myself - every human needs half a gallon of water a day, that means for the entire life of our species, every human has had access to half a gallon a day. It's absolutely necessary to get Some, but that's a solved problem in all societies; New York might have issues with clearing their sewage and African tribes might have trouble with droughts, but beyond that, it IS a solved problem. The "naked and afraid" -step doesn't have to last long. Especially as the tutorial-challenge system spoils that entire journey already...

"Getting water" is the wrong step to try to gate, while remaining realistic. Gate production by other means, other mats; limit drinking with "carrying issues" like a limited canteen, or whatnot - or don't.

 

[Kyoji]

Because you're here complaining.

You mean offering suggestions? Not my fault you think anyone who disagrees with you is complaining.

No, it's not irrelevant. It depends on where you go looting and knowing the places in the world.
If you go around casually looting stuff on the ground or maybe here and there looting random POIs, then you'd only find a limited amount of murky water each day (unless you're playing with different loot settings than me).

Some casual players maybe even loot POIs only partially because they run away or die at the first tough encounter.
Some of them stay near the area they spawned in, for example, and don't move to a town right away, so they have less looting chances.

You see? You're not taking into account, in my opinion, that you're a veteran player and you already know how to play in the most effective way.

But you're right that there's enough water in the game to not even need a dew collector for basic survival, and you actually made TFP point here.
TFP want players to be able to survive with water but to work for it. Next step is "water independence", and that's the dew collector.

If you are new you are likely looting everything. If you go into a house and loot you will come out with plenty of water, same for farms, fire stations, etc.

You say veteran player, but you are acting like you are the voice of a new player with a join date of 2015 and over 2,400 messages. I simply disagree with your assessment that new players are only looting POIs partially and are unable to find water. This is why water should be more difficult to come by early on, same for food.

You are ignoring the majority of the discussion either willfully or ignorantly by assuming people want easy water and don't want to work for it. It's why Jawoodle suggested breaking on impact and others have stated other fixes. Now I think those fixes are bad for other reasons but, most certainly not for it being too easy.

If you made jars consume on use like every other container in the game you wouldn't have to worry about tons of jars. If new players can't figure out mechanics then the developers can add it to the tutorial, but it seemed to be intuitive when it was in the game previously.

All of this is to say that I don't even want jars back as I think the net gain of value isn't consistent with the level of fixing the game needs right now. I just hate disingenuous arguments that deliberately misrepresent others positions on the matter - which we call straw man.

 

[grz__]

Bro, are you for real? You’re telling me if something was trying to eat you alive, you wouldn’t be scrambling up a wall, a tree, a gate, anything, to get out of reach? That’s just basic survival sense. Yeah, there are exploits in the game, but moving out of reach isn’t one of them. Selling rocks for infinite dukes? Exploit. Floating garage doors, you can hop onto? Exploit. Glitching into solid blocks so you’re safe inside while still able to shoot out? Exploit. Climbing to safety, using height, building smart bases.. no, that’s survival, not cheesing. I’d rather they added a mutated mole-type zombie that can dig quickly so the rest of the horde follows it into underground bases, instead of just giving every zombie “drill hands.” Stuff like that shows how TFP are more focused on forcing their way or the highway instead of fixing the actual exploits.

in that comment i talk about the change where zombies can hit you when you go up 2 blocks, before you just had to put 2 blocks go up and kill the strongest zombie with a low level club, you talk about exploits, or glitches, the change of the two blocks affects the normal gameplay because you do not have to do any exploits, just play normal like going up a fence or wall, people usually complain about these things saying that tfp wants to take away the fun or things like that, with which i do not agree, in this specific case, now in theory it is somewhat more difficult and you need more skill to face the zombies, you can still go up a wall and get to safety, but you will not be able to hit a zombie with a stick to kill it, more difficulty = more fun players who want something easier can reduce the difficulty in the menu, however those who want more difficulty, they can not do anything because in insane the game is extremely easy, because the game has many cheese tactics, as mentioned above, mega crush, magic candies and more op things, which you have to force yourself not to use to make the game, fun.

I’d rather they added a mutated mole-type zombie that can dig quickly so the rest of the horde follows it into underground bases,

You know what some people would think if TFP implemented that? That TFP wants to ruin the fun because they're the Fun Police, or something.
See what I mean?

 

[Soulmonster]

I am a pretty experienced 7DTD player yet I struggle with water in the beginning. It takes me some days to get a dew collector, not because of the skill -- because I always find a Forge Ahead at Rekt's -- but because it requires four duct tapes, and those are not easy to find (I play with 50% loot). I can make duct tape using water, but then I need clean water and I rarely find cooking pot on day one, so I have to loot to find duct tape. So the first few days of my plays I usually get by drinking murky water, with loss in health as a result, which can make all the difference at Insane difficulty. Only when the first dew collector is up and running do I start to get control over the water situation. I don't mind that I have solved the drinking water issue at that point, water doesn't have to be a struggle throughout the entirety of a play. I am fine with getting over an obstacle and leaving it behind for the rest of the game.

If I were to suggest changes, I'd make dew collectors produce clean/distilled water automatically, but very slowly. Such Pure Water would be required for some important recipes, or could be drunk without any ill effects. Another way to create Pure Water would be through filtration at the Chemical Station (but that would be later game stage). A final way to get Pure Water is from collecting rain water, which makes bad weather a benefit and would require some item for rain water collection. Then I'd allow Dirty Water -- from rivers and lakes and toilets -- to be used for duct tape production (collect from rivers and lakes using a bucket or canteen or similar) as it is, but drinking it would cause all kinds of health problems. I'd allow Dirty Water to be boiled to make Sterilized Water, which would still cause negative health effects, but less so - for full protection you'd need to drink Pure Water.

Water still wouldn't be a big problem, and you'd have drinkable water quickly when you first get a dew collector up and running (or if it happens to rain a lot). It does make water a temporary challenge, an initial challenge, not because you can't transport water from lakes and rivers or because you can't boil it (because pots should be readily available in a post-apocalyptic world), but because natural water sources are contaminated in such a way that boiling alone doesn't fix it. You need to filtrate it, and that's when dew collectors come in.

Also, I don't particularly like the need for huge amounts of duct tape in later stages, which encourages a lot of dew collectors. I would prefer if less tape was needed and perhaps more parts. Also with the changes mentioned above, you could easily make duct tape using Dirty Water. More detailed specialized parts would be cool, maybe an item needed a few different parts to be assembles but still only 1-2 duct tapes. It would encourage doing quests and looting, maybe exploring different biomes where these specialized parts are to be found, and discourage lots of dew collectors for glue production which just seems silly. The challenge then wouldn't be to create lots of duct tape but finding advanced parts needed for advanced items, encouraging exploration and doing quests.

 

[Jost Amman]

You mean offering suggestions? Not my fault you think anyone who disagrees with you is complaining.

Ok then: "you're offering suggestions" ... (happy?) ... but my point strands, you're in the minority of players that take time to give some kind of feedback. You're not part of the great silent majority which just plays the game and never even looked at TFP forums.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 9:20 AM

You say veteran player, but you are acting like you are the voice of a new player with a join date of 2015 and over 2,400 messages.

No, I'm just using common sense and anecdotal knowledge about how new players behave when playing games they don't know.
You could say that even some experienced streamers (maybe purposefully) play in a casual way that we veterans would cringe at.

 

[Jost Amman]

I am a pretty experienced 7DTD player yet I struggle with water in the beginning. It takes me some days to get a dew collector, not because of the skill -- because I always find a Forge Ahead at Rekt's -- but because it requires four duct tapes, and those are not easy to find (I play with 50% loot). I can make duct tape using water, but then I need clean water and I rarely find cooking pot on day one, so I have to loot to find duct tape. So the first few days of my plays I usually get by drinking murky water, with loss in health as a result, which can make all the difference at Insane difficulty. Only when the first dew collector is up and running do I start to get control over the water situation. I don't mind that I have solved the drinking water issue at that point, water doesn't have to be a struggle throughout the entirety of a play. I am fine with getting over an obstacle and leaving it behind for the rest of the game.

Thanks! That's exactly what I was talking about!

 

[ALEXZANDER]

It’s a really good start, but they still haven’t even touched on one of the biggest topics players have been bringing up and they just keep ignoring it. We want our jars back, and we want to craft them. Make it harder if needed—the recipe could require more materials, maybe even the crucible tool in the forge, and we could have a dedicated water station. Each biome could have different levels of water contamination, getting harder and harder to make drinkable. Even plain boiled water could have a drawback, like damaging the player. There are so many creative options instead of “player no understand empty jar cannot save and fill.” We also want old-school farming as an option in the game again, improved with modern touches: water irrigation pipes, UV lighting for underground farming, and a rain collector upgrade that fills water trenches we dig so crops can absorb it. Fertilizer, the hoe, bring it all back as part of a dedicated farming path that we can still choose to follow alongside the AFK-style farm plots.

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