Slight water rework

[MiTHMoN]

Since water is a much simpler topic than melee, armour, and ranged, I'll just quickly add a post for it. Plus, 2.6 really made dew collectors and jars a big topic again.

Currently, the main "drinking" items are:
Empty Glass Jar
Water
Coffee
Red Tea
Goldenrod Tea
Pure Mineral Water

There is technically Backstrap coffee, and maybe some other things that aren't coming to mind right now (like Megacrush), but they're more obscure.

Dew Collectors have been put in an awkward spot in 2.6, when they were fine in 2.5. I'm not entirely sure what the motivations were to make the changes, but rather than the solution being "revert the change back to how it was in 2.5", I'm going to suggest an option going forward.


For the player, at least in my experience, the gameplay and decision-making comes down to this:
1. You loot Glass Jars and/or Murky Water. You fill the Glass Jars at a water source (river, lake, pool, etc). You can craft Glass Jars at a Forge.
2. You use a Campfire with a Cooking Pot (looted, forged, or purchased) to create Water.
3. Now is the actual chance to make a decision...
A) Drink the Water, for 20 hydration.
B) Make Coffee, for higher stamina regeneration.
C) Make Red Tea, for general purpose, which reduces food/water usage.
D) Make Goldenrod Tea if you specifically plan to eat Sham Sandwiches.
E) Wait until you've got the ability to make Pure Mineral Water.

Currently, there's not much of a decision to make. I generally just drink the Water as is, and rarely I make it into Red Tea.
When I unlock the ability to make Pure Mineral Water, I drink that instead of Water, and spend the remaining Water into Glue or various foods.


Setting the scene:
As far as I understand the lore of the world of 7DTD, it seems reasonable that water in lakes and rivers could be contaminated. And the urban water in pools, drains, and sewers could possibly be "still water". To that end, I'd suggest that collecting water from a river should not result in the same quality of water as the water from a Dew Collector.


The changes I suggest:

Murky Water produces Boiled Water when boiled at a Campfire.

Boiled Water gives 10 hydration. It's a low-tier water, used for drinking (if you're desperate), making Goldenrod Tea, or making into Glue.

Goldenrod Tea is nerfed to 15 hydration. It's a cure for dysentery, which you only ever get in the very early game if you're struggling.

Dew Collectors produce Clean Water.

Clean Water replaces what is currently called Water, and has the current 20 hydration.

Glue would be able to be created with Boiled Water or with Clean Water.


This means that Murky Water can not be turned into Clean Water. So even though players can survive and subsist on drinking Boiled Water or Goldenrod Tea by filling their jars at rivers, they won't be able to use that water for other recipes.

That's where Dew Collectors (and looting) come in. Dew Collectors therefore become *the* main source for Clean Water, which is used for more advanced recipes (Red Tea, Coffee, Pure Mineral Water, Boiled Eggs, Cornbread, Meat Stew, etc).

This means, if players don't want to invest into Dew Collectors, they will need to get their Clean Water from looting, or from traders and vending machines.

 

[InfiniteWarrior]

Sounds like a great modification whether TFP or someone else does it. Your suggestion is a good one for deepening and enriching the game's water system itself, i.e. introducing water quality as opposed to simply murky and pure. If there's time and budget, I'd certainly take it into consideration were I TFP, but some will perceive it as complicating matters even more than they already are, i.e. they'll just want to get their water and go do other things or will feel dew collectors are being pushed on them whether they want to use them or not. "Players won't be able to" is probably not a phrase that goes over very well. Players are already insisting TFP is making them play the game their way. And if TFP hurriedly just patches something in there, it will be as much or more a mess as it is now.

New players wouldn't know the difference with your system. As far as they'd be concerned, the water system had always been that way...unless they caught wind of the split in the community and its incessant debate over jars.

2.5 was fine for now, imo, with the possible exception of adding empty jars to the game world. Aesthetically-speaking, it accommodated both "natural" (hand-drawn) and mechanical (dew collector) water collection with even a sense of progression from one to the other if players chose to avail themselves of it rather than choosing one over the other as a personal preference. It was a good foundation for further development, if further development was possible or desired. If TFP choose to deepen the water systems and make them more interesting, they're going to have to come up with the time and budget and resources to do it rather than slapping something together that stands out like a sore thumb. That's something I don't think most players think about.

Once things get going under the new acquisition, perhaps they'll have more time and breathing room to consider deepening systems in the manner you describe. At least, I think that's their hope.