[2023] A21 Should Keep Reusable Empty Jars

There are a few things missing from A20 that A21 has such as dew collectors and being able to drink directly from a water source and a brand new loot distribution. However, I agree that simulating any change from the default can be fun and eye opening so why not? It will at the least possibly form the basis for a new mod if someone who has that talent tries it and feels passionately about how it enhances the gameplay for them :-)

There's one big problem with reusable empty jars- And it's one that there is no solution for. With a reusable jar, You only need a single jar and you now have access to infinite clean drinking water. It might be tedious; But it's infinite and basically costless.

I'll grant that the dew collector is also infinite- But it's limited in that you get 3 jars a day, very slowly, and it has a large upfront crafting cost to boot. It's also not exactly portable, nor can you just scrounge up the supplies for it anywhere. In A20, A single jar, 5 stone, and 1 wood lets you craft boiled water next to any water source, and the materials can be sourced almost anywhere in any biome- and water sources are pretty common in A20 too. Sacrifice an inventory slot to carry a pot if you're enforcing the cooking pot requirement.

The single biggest and most common reason I see people desperately wanting to keep empty jars is mass glue making via murky water- But there may well be a reasonable solution to that coming in A21 to resolve that perceived problem in spite of the jar removal. We don't have every single tiny detail just yet. For example, Glue might be craftable with the water gained from a dew collector, Or maybe there's a new recipe that lets you use clay to murk-ify clean water, Or maybe glue crafts in amounts greater than 1 per water- Maybe it makes a batch of 5.

Originally posted by Roland: There are a few things missing from A20 that A21 has such as dew collectors and being able to drink directly from a water source and a brand new loot distribution. However, I agree that simulating any change from the default can be fun and eye opening so why not? It will at the least possibly form the basis for a new mod if someone who has that talent tries it and feels passionately about how it enhances the gameplay for them :-)

I think the loot table rebalance might be the biggest thing, In A21, murky water drop rates have almost assuredly been rebalanced to compensate for the removal of tea/coffe/water/etc sources from loot.


Still, overall I agree with Roland- Trying a new way to play can be eye opening. For example, I feel like some STR/INT-Only players really need to give another tree a try from time to time, because they aren't half as bad as the common belief.

Edit: some edits for clarification.

Originally posted by DerFinneAT:

Originally posted by Shurenai: . In A20, A single jar, 5 stone, and 1 wood lets you craft boiled water next to any water source, and the materials can be sourced almost anywhere in any biome- and water sources are pretty common in A20 too. Sacrifice an inventory slot to carry a pot if you're enforcing the cooking pot requirement.

That almost sounds like something, you would expect as a survival-mechanic in a survival-game.

Agai: I amooming forward to A21, and I will judge, when I can play.

But this change - albeit sorely needed to bring a bit of meaningful survival-complexity back - is very gamy, and probably only needed, because other areas of 7d2d have become increasingly gamefied since before A13 to make things "more fun". (aka bash more zombies)

Except it's not a survival mechanic when it's so ridiculously easy to get infinite water.

But, Let's do some some comparison for the sake of reasonable discourse.

Project Zomboid is possibly the most apt. The bottles are reusable/refillable, you can even boil them in a microwave. EZ infinite water, right? Except it's not.

First we'll assume you had atrocious luck and the water is out, and the water is all gone from anywhere near where you are.

To get tainted water you need a water source- You have two options. Hope for it to rain, Which it may not for weeks at a time; Or base right next to a lake/the main river. In the former case, if you're incredibly lucky, it can happen anywhere and you just need to find a microwave to boil it. For the latter, off a single bottle, your movement range is now restricted to how far you can go before that bottle is empty, which dramatically limits your options.

But wait, RNGesus strikes, 8 days in the power shuts off. Now you can't just boil your water bottle anywhere- In fact you can't boil it at all, the only options now are grills, and campfires, neither of which will boil a bottle of water. If you're lucky, you've found both a generator and it's how-to magazine and can keep boiling your single bottle back at your base; Else, you now die of dehydration.

But to continue the thought experiment a little further, we pick up a single cooking pot- The analogue to the cooking pot from 7DTD. Now we can boil water on a grill- But charcoal is rare and limited, so is propane. Or we can boil it in a campfire, but the materials for that while available aren't able to be picked up just anywhere, and you won't necessarily have easy access to fuel and tinder to light it even if you happened to find the materials nearby.


So while the bottle is technically access to infinite water in PZ, It's limited- It greatly restricts your range of motion, And is on borrowed time from the start.

In PZ, Once the water shuts off, You have to constantly go out and get more water holding containers, you have to constantly go out and bring back tainted water to boil, you have to constantly visit further and further buildings to drain the sinks/tubs/etc of fresh water. The longer you play, the more sparse water becomes. Even when you make rain collectors, You're still at the mercy of RNG- Will it rain? Or not?- And even if it rains, will it rain enough for you to water your crops AND drink it yourself, Or will you maybe have to sacrifice your harvest so that you don't die to dehydration, meaning you now have to solve a food problem instead.

Water in PZ is not just one and done, It's not just tedium.


Subnautica. To continue getting clean water, you have to keep going out and catching literal filter fish- Not one and done. And gamey as heck, even if it's thematic. Filter fish.(named bladder fish, but its used to filter water)

The Long Dark, Water is everywhere. Unfortunately, it's also frozen. So you have to constantly range out to get the materials to make fires and boil water to keep yourself alive.

The Forest, All the standing water in the map is saltwater or polluted and dangerous to drink. Convenient and, imo, just as gamey as the proposed changes for 7DTD, but that aside, the only way to get clean drinking water is by making a rain collector with a turtle shell and praying it rains; Or by happening across an incredibly rare find, the pot (that was only added much later in development).

Raft; Everywhere is salt water. At least it's not gamey this time, it takes place on a giant ocean. It's odd that there are no freshwater ponds on ANY of the islands though innit. And yet- A single water container and a fire and you've got infinite hydration. Your raft always floats forward, you'll always have wood from the drifting materials- You can't just bring it anywhere, but your raft is never far from your location except on the largest islands, at which point you will definitely already have the improved water bottle that holds more than a single drink of water.


There's one consistent thing going on here- Water is either game-ily restricted, typically by making it undrinkable ala salty/polluted water, Or it's so easy it's barely an inconvenience and may as well not exist since except for the first 30 minutes of the game it's never a recognizable threat to the player.

A Survival game should be able to consistently threaten the players survival chances with it's survival mechanics; If it doesn't, It's failing, and it needs to be resolved.

Long Dark does it really well, from my experience- Water is something you have to work for and is a constant concern.

Project Zomboid comes close, And yet, Much as I love it, PZ also suffers from what 7DTD does. There is a point of critical mass after which water is never concern again. Once you have 3+ rain collectors, Or a sufficient number of containers of whatever shape or form, It's never a problem again- Analagous to 7DTD's existing reusable jar problem- Day 1, acquire many jars, never run out of water.

Originally posted by FT: I think the main problems making some things super easy are that you can currently visit a single POI on your first day and walk away with 10+jars with some containing coffee and boiled water so thirst is instantly not an issue, and by day1-2 you can craft a forge to make infinite jars for infinite glue/tape.

Those issues are instantly solved by making jars non-craftable and making EmptyJars+BoiledWater non-lootable, and maybe making murky water a little rarer in loot if needed.
Boom. No infinite jars, no pile of easy drinks from a single POI.

Find a single jar of any liquid, drink it-> infinite water ala the above. No infinite jars needed- Just a single jar, a water source, and a way to clean it.

In A20 and A21, there's water sources everywhere, In ditches, theres lil lakes everywhere, in POI pools. And stone to make a campfire is also everywhere- Smack any stone looking structure a few times, trip over them as you walk around, loot them, smack the sidewalk or road. And wood for fuel is everywhere- smack any wood looking structure a few times, trip over wood bushes, break fences, chop any of the billion trees you'll walk past. all you need is ONE reusable jar, And while tedious, You have infinite water conveniently at essentially any location you visit.

Originally posted by FT: Water in TheLongDark is super easy. You just collect bottles or snow and boil it to make potable water wherever you end up indoors if there's a stove/grill (most places have) or outdoors at a campfire if the weather isn't awful.

Water in Zomboid is super easy at first while electricity and water works (unless you crank difficulty or get super unlucky), and still pretty easy with a common pot and campfire.
Also very easy if you find a well...if that hasn't been nerfed.

TheForest's way of doing things is a bit frustrating and feels contrived/forced (rainwater I collect is fine but if it collects somewhere else it's suddenly "bad")?

Originally posted by Shurenia: Convenient and, imo, just as gamey as the proposed changes for 7DTD

That doesn't exactly sound like a glowing review of either game's strategy.

To the latter first, The point I was attempting to make wasn't a review of either game's strategy- But that a fact of life is that games have game mechanics...that are often gamey. Yet very few people really have a problem with the Forest's gamey mechanic, but 7DTD has a gamey mechanic? We can't have that. Gamey mechanics are something to be expected in games- Even the greatest games are not free from them, Because game mechanics are what make them games and not real life.


In TLD yeah, water is everwhere, I even said as much. But, Your access to fuel and ways to ignite fire is not limitless. Maybe it's changed drastically since the last time I played, but it was far from easy to keep a consistent water supply when I played last.. Because I lacked fire.

In zomboid, Yeah, a well, or lake, or river is infinite water- But it's also like a chain that ties you down, you're restricted in how far you can go from that well/lake/river if you want to keep your water supply. A common pot is common, but a campfire isn't, It takes materials that aren't likely to just be around at any given time, requiring you to commit a significant portion of your very limited carrying capacity to bringing the campfire materials, a lighter/match, and often tinder to light it with you. It's a choice you CAN make, but it's again a very restricting choice- And unlike 7DTD, there aren't little ponds, pools, ditches, rain gulleys etc all over the place full of water to fill your pot up. Lakes and other guaranteed sources of tainted water are few and far between- Which goes right back to restricting how far you can go; Does you no good to bring along campfire materials a pot, a lighter, and some scrap paper if there's no water for ten miles in any direction.