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Shurenai
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TL;DR: "Because it's not realistic!"
Don't mind that many other survival games don't give you empty jars either, but you don't really see complaints about that...
The forest? No water jars. Also all the water is either tainted or sea water and you can't drink it. You can after much ado get a pot you can boil water in- But for much of your playthroughs you're going to be subsisting on rain water captured in turtle shells. Seriously, a pro might be able to get that pot right quick; But a newbie isn't.
Raft? No jars! Water everywhere! Yay! Oh wait no, It's sea water. You can craft a plastic cup to hold it and boil it over a fire.
Project Zomboid: All external water is tainted and needs boiling... Technically no jars you can put water in, but you can use a lot of other containers. And water in PZ is basically a perpetual non issue because even after the water shutoff every water object in the game, ie toilets, sinks, and tubs, have a reservoir of clean water inside.
And more examples besides.... Fact is, Survival games by and large do one of two things. Either they don't just give you water; IF water exists as a terrain feature, it is invariably either tainted, or saline, and can't just be drank, and you have to work to get your water... Or they let you just gather and boil it from a water source, and it's literally never an issue for the player to solve.
Like, I get it, Boiling water is a... 'realistic' measure of water purification. But there absolutely can be pollutants in water that boiling does not kill, or remove. Boiled water is NEVER automatically SAFE; It is Saf ER to drink than unboiled water, but can absolutely still make you ill.
7DTD went the "you can just gather and boil water from a source" route for a very long time. Water was not an issue at all for that entire time- You could have effectively infinite access to water within like 2 minutes of starting; Obtain 5 stone, a few pieces of wood, a single jar, and find a water source- Now you can boil and refill that same jar over and over. And you could also craft them- So you'd just craft 500 jars, fill em at the source, boil it all and basically never need to gather water again unless you made a TON of glue.
Now 7DTD is leaning towards the "You cant just gather water from the world around you" direction, And players are upset because it's no longer a free gimme.
In short, It used to be that the water bar might as well not exist beause it was so easy to obtain water. Now it's hard and while it may not matter for a long time, it DOES matter in the early game; Long time players have less of an issue with it because they know the game in and out, newbs prolly take an ingame week or so to figure out their water situation. It's a first iterative step in making water actually matter as a survival stat, And will almost definitely be tuned further.
Don't mind that many other survival games don't give you empty jars either, but you don't really see complaints about that...
The forest? No water jars. Also all the water is either tainted or sea water and you can't drink it. You can after much ado get a pot you can boil water in- But for much of your playthroughs you're going to be subsisting on rain water captured in turtle shells. Seriously, a pro might be able to get that pot right quick; But a newbie isn't.
Raft? No jars! Water everywhere! Yay! Oh wait no, It's sea water. You can craft a plastic cup to hold it and boil it over a fire.
Project Zomboid: All external water is tainted and needs boiling... Technically no jars you can put water in, but you can use a lot of other containers. And water in PZ is basically a perpetual non issue because even after the water shutoff every water object in the game, ie toilets, sinks, and tubs, have a reservoir of clean water inside.
And more examples besides.... Fact is, Survival games by and large do one of two things. Either they don't just give you water; IF water exists as a terrain feature, it is invariably either tainted, or saline, and can't just be drank, and you have to work to get your water... Or they let you just gather and boil it from a water source, and it's literally never an issue for the player to solve.
Like, I get it, Boiling water is a... 'realistic' measure of water purification. But there absolutely can be pollutants in water that boiling does not kill, or remove. Boiled water is NEVER automatically SAFE; It is Saf ER to drink than unboiled water, but can absolutely still make you ill.
7DTD went the "you can just gather and boil water from a source" route for a very long time. Water was not an issue at all for that entire time- You could have effectively infinite access to water within like 2 minutes of starting; Obtain 5 stone, a few pieces of wood, a single jar, and find a water source- Now you can boil and refill that same jar over and over. And you could also craft them- So you'd just craft 500 jars, fill em at the source, boil it all and basically never need to gather water again unless you made a TON of glue.
Now 7DTD is leaning towards the "You cant just gather water from the world around you" direction, And players are upset because it's no longer a free gimme.
In short, It used to be that the water bar might as well not exist beause it was so easy to obtain water. Now it's hard and while it may not matter for a long time, it DOES matter in the early game; Long time players have less of an issue with it because they know the game in and out, newbs prolly take an ingame week or so to figure out their water situation. It's a first iterative step in making water actually matter as a survival stat, And will almost definitely be tuned further.