Cholera. I just keep getting it.

[Friendly Timo]

In my current game I just seem to get cholera and after beating it, getting it again after a random amount of time. Yeah, I know the usual suspects. I make sure to use chlorine tablets to the bottles I fill from streams etc. I wear gloves, I don't eat raw meat, etc.

I was playing on official server, grew bunch of peppers and as I was exploring through the woods, munching on those peppers to keep my stats well above the minimum threshold of when the white symbols turn yellow. I wasn't attacked by anything, my blood level and health all maxed. I was wet due to rain and BANG, it hit again. The sickness icon and blurry vision. Tried drinking half a bottle. Vomit. Yeah. Here we go again.

Can anyone explain to what I am doing wrong? What is going on?

[Envy The Dead]

you are probably reinfecting yourself with used food or water bottles

[Amogus]

Originally posted by Bunker:

you are probably reinfecting yourself with used food or water bottles

It's amazing that, if this is actually true, so many game mechanics are unexplained and have to either be looked up or be told by someone who knows about this kind of stuff. To a new player, all they see is them constantly getting sick from eating/drinking with absolutely no indication or idea of what it is they're doing wrong. As I like to think of it, "cholera around every corner, but hell if you can figure out what caused it".

The problem that I have an issue with more than anything else is that there is no indication whatsoever about what you're eating/drinking apart from if a piece of meat is raw/cooked, as well as a visual indication of whether it is rotten or not. For all you know, that water bottle you picked up could be filled with bleach or disinfectant spray, yet there's no way for you to know that. There is no "smell/taste" option to use to warn you if something might be tainted, which means the only truly viable way to deal with it is to instantly dump everything you find and refill it.

Full-on survival games with absolutely no explanation of mechanics whatsoever are only fun when it is consistent, such as Project Zomboid. The fact that my water can "go bad" while, at the same time, I can have cooking pot full of water AND food at the same time is idiotic, and it shows just how difficult it is to truly understand how to play the game properly for less experienced players.

Ultimately, modding is the only thing that saved this game. The base game is way too convoluted to actually spend time working with, since consistency is non-existent in this game.

[Amogus]

This doesn't even touch on the fact that you can get sick again from wearing the same clothes that you died in when you were sick. This is a mechanic that you have absolutely no idea about until you get stupid lucky and change your clothes and find out you're not getting sick anymore.

For hours of real life play time, I ran around with my friends with cholera, constantly chugging water, eating tetracycline pills (temporarily removed the sickness, but it came back), only to die and come back. Once I put on the clothes again and walked around for a bit (I didn't eat/drink anything or encounter any zombies on the way back), I got sick again and then we realized that it was the clothes. As soon as I changed clothes and took a pill, the disease went away within a minute and never came back.

I don't have a problem with hidden/complex survival mechanics, but when the game is so inconsistent with its application of "realism vs arcade" mechanics, as well as you having absolutely no indication whatsoever of what the problem would be or any sort of loading screen tips to potentially give an idea of this kind of stuff, that's what I find a problem with.

[Friendly Timo]

I've used the same bottles I've had for weeks without problems. I always use tablets when I fill them from streams.

I hear people advice to disinfect the bottles and clothes. This game doesn't allow me to though. I guess its not available with this patch?

[Bebop]

I thought the only clothes items you can reinfect yourself with are face coverings. Just throw whatever mask you have away and after you're cured craft a fresh face wrap out of cloth scraps. Always dump out water in bottles when you pick them up and only drink from them with pure water from a well. As long as you are warm and fed you will heal up and just don't wear those damn masks when your sick or drink water you haven't filled yourself.

[Friendly Timo]

Originally posted by Gravel Thief:

I thought the only clothes items you can reinfect yourself with are face coverings. Just throw whatever mask you have away and after you're cured craft a fresh face wrap out of cloth scraps. Always dump out water in bottles when you pick them up and only drink from them with pure water from a well. As long as you are warm and fed you will heal up and just don't wear those damn masks when your sick or drink water you haven't filled yourself.

Ok. Thank you! I'll dich the mask for sure. Let's hope that helps..

[Envy The Dead]

Originally posted by  Maximum Glove Gaming :

Originally posted by Bunker:

you are probably reinfecting yourself with used food or water bottles

It's amazing that, if this is actually true, so many game mechanics are unexplained and have to either be looked up or be told by someone who knows about this kind of stuff. To a new player, all they see is them constantly getting sick from eating/drinking with absolutely no indication or idea of what it is they're doing wrong. As I like to think of it, "cholera around every corner, but hell if you can figure out what caused it".

The problem that I have an issue with more than anything else is that there is no indication whatsoever about what you're eating/drinking apart from if a piece of meat is raw/cooked, as well as a visual indication of whether it is rotten or not. For all you know, that water bottle you picked up could be filled with bleach or disinfectant spray, yet there's no way for you to know that. There is no "smell/taste" option to use to warn you if something might be tainted, which means the only truly viable way to deal with it is to instantly dump everything you find and refill it.

Full-on survival games with absolutely no explanation of mechanics whatsoever are only fun when it is consistent, such as Project Zomboid. The fact that my water can "go bad" while, at the same time, I can have cooking pot full of water AND food at the same time is idiotic, and it shows just how difficult it is to truly understand how to play the game properly for less experienced players.

Ultimately, modding is the only thing that saved this game. The base game is way too convoluted to actually spend time working with, since consistency is non-existent in this game.

always dump out the liquid in any bottle you pick up most people know that by now

[Amogus]

Originally posted by Bunker:

Originally posted by  Maximum Glove Gaming :

It's amazing that, if this is actually true, so many game mechanics are unexplained and have to either be looked up or be told by someone who knows about this kind of stuff. To a new player, all they see is them constantly getting sick from eating/drinking with absolutely no indication or idea of what it is they're doing wrong. As I like to think of it, "cholera around every corner, but hell if you can figure out what caused it".

The problem that I have an issue with more than anything else is that there is no indication whatsoever about what you're eating/drinking apart from if a piece of meat is raw/cooked, as well as a visual indication of whether it is rotten or not. For all you know, that water bottle you picked up could be filled with bleach or disinfectant spray, yet there's no way for you to know that. There is no "smell/taste" option to use to warn you if something might be tainted, which means the only truly viable way to deal with it is to instantly dump everything you find and refill it.

Full-on survival games with absolutely no explanation of mechanics whatsoever are only fun when it is consistent, such as Project Zomboid. The fact that my water can "go bad" while, at the same time, I can have cooking pot full of water AND food at the same time is idiotic, and it shows just how difficult it is to truly understand how to play the game properly for less experienced players.

Ultimately, modding is the only thing that saved this game. The base game is way too convoluted to actually spend time working with, since consistency is non-existent in this game.

always dump out the liquid in any bottle you pick up most people know that by now

The thing is, there's several reasons why this is a stupid game mechanic.

1. In an actual survival situation, you wouldn't have the luxury of an infinite water source with pure water coming out of it. The fact that wells are 100% pure with nothing wrong with them and are infinite is far from a hardcore game mechanic. Also, I'm pretty sure wells in coastal cities would be salt water and, as such, undrinkable.

2. Once again, in an actual survival situation, you wouldn't be dumping out water in a water bottle that you found in a house, as long as it doesn't have anything noticeably wrong with it like mold or other water-based issues. The fact that dumping out your resource to refill it elsewhere is the go-to option in a "hardcore survival game" makes no sense either.

DayZ should stop marketing itself as hardcore when it picks and chooses what it wants to be hardcore. Infinite water sources aren't hardcore, while getting sick from practically anything that isn't fresh (AKA cooking animal meat, wells, or canned food are fresh) is too hardcore and borderline unrealistic. I mean, if they want the game to be a super punishing hardcore game, then why aren't I allowed to cover the water pump in bleach/disinfectant spray to get everyone who drinks from it sick?

[Bebop]

Originally posted by  Maximum Glove Gaming :

Originally posted by Bunker:

always dump out the liquid in any bottle you pick up most people know that by now

The thing is, there's several reasons why this is a stupid game mechanic.

1. In an actual survival situation, you wouldn't have the luxury of an infinite water source with pure water coming out of it. The fact that wells are 100% pure with nothing wrong with them and are infinite is far from a hardcore game mechanic. Also, I'm pretty sure wells in coastal cities would be salt water and, as such, undrinkable.

2. Once again, in an actual survival situation, you wouldn't be dumping out water in a water bottle that you found in a house, as long as it doesn't have anything noticeably wrong with it like mold or other water-based issues. The fact that dumping out your resource to refill it elsewhere is the go-to option in a "hardcore survival game" makes no sense either.

DayZ should stop marketing itself as hardcore when it picks and chooses what it wants to be hardcore. Infinite water sources aren't hardcore, while getting sick from practically anything that isn't fresh (AKA cooking animal meat, wells, or canned food are fresh) is too hardcore and borderline unrealistic. I mean, if they want the game to be a super punishing hardcore game, then why aren't I allowed to cover the water pump in bleach/disinfectant spray to get everyone who drinks from it sick?

Wells are naturally balanced due to other reasons
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2852375057

[Friendly Timo]

Originally posted by Bunker:

always dump out the liquid in any bottle you pick up most people know that by now

Yeah well that goes as naturally for me as "press W to move forward"

[Maya-Neko]

Originally posted by  Maximum Glove Gaming :

This doesn't even touch on the fact that you can get sick again from wearing the same clothes that you died in when you were sick. This is a mechanic that you have absolutely no idea about until you get stupid lucky and change your clothes and find out you're not getting sick anymore.

Did nobody told you in real life, how bacteria and viruses work? Washing your clothes and bed sheets at 60°C after you were sick is pretty much recommended these days, because wearing something contaminated can get others around you sick depending on how the illness spreads.

Obviously in real life, your immune system would beef up while dealing with an infection and would make it mostly impossible to reinfect yourself for a couple of weeks, but if it would be that easy to get immunity, then most people would propably just exploit it extremely hard, so it's understandable, that the illness system gets balanced around it properly in a way, that this immunity wears off way faster and that newly spawned people doesn't have it at all.

Originally posted by  Maximum Glove Gaming :

1. In an actual survival situation, you wouldn't have the luxury of an infinite water source with pure water coming out of it. The fact that wells are 100% pure with nothing wrong with them and are infinite is far from a hardcore game mechanic. Also, I'm pretty sure wells in coastal cities would be salt water and, as such, undrinkable.

2. Once again, in an actual survival situation, you wouldn't be dumping out water in a water bottle that you found in a house, as long as it doesn't have anything noticeably wrong with it like mold or other water-based issues. The fact that dumping out your resource to refill it elsewhere is the go-to option in a "hardcore survival game" makes no sense either.

DayZ should stop marketing itself as hardcore when it picks and chooses what it wants to be hardcore. Infinite water sources aren't hardcore, while getting sick from practically anything that isn't fresh (AKA cooking animal meat, wells, or canned food are fresh) is too hardcore and borderline unrealistic. I mean, if they want the game to be a super punishing hardcore game, then why aren't I allowed to cover the water pump in bleach/disinfectant spray to get everyone who drinks from it sick?

Water-based issues? You mean like it containtining bacteria? There are many bacteria and viruses, which you simply can't smell or taste, which is why experts actually advice to not drink anything from an unknown source if you've other options. Obviously having a sealed bottle has a higher chance of being clean, but ultimately after years of it lying around somewhere that can't be guaranteed anymore.

And do you even know, how a well works? Even in real life it's pretty much an infinite source of water in most cases (which is btw. why building wells in africa is prefered over just sending water over there) and depending on the depth of the well, it can even be sold wihtout further filtering as mineral water, since the earth and stone already did the filtering

And just to put the "infinity" into perspective: The Volvic well can deliver 7 million bottles of water every single day. Like how many people do you expect running around these wells to actually run it dry?

Even if you argue, that industrial wells like that aren't realistic in a postapocalyptic scenario, then you should also take a look at private wells, which are still capable of pumping several hundreds, if not thausands of litres per day and the only reason for why they can't deliver more is most of the time the strength of the pump rather than the amount of ground water.

[Ar Murazor]

Originally posted by  Maximum Glove Gaming :

The thing is, there's several reasons why this is a stupid game mechanic.

Mechanics are good. Just a bit harsh.
Main problem is the lack of explanation about game mechanics. Because there's no tutorial. Even for repair and drive cars there are some surprises.
This is not a game for beginners.

The page description of the game is a lie. Promotion of this game is very bad. Tricking customers. Noone is prepared to the game content except the insiders. And many are giving up.

[2High2tell]

Although your argument on "teaching new players" about the game is very true. The game itself could have done much better.

But truly, it does not take long to learn, the info is out there in patch notes but like most people who the hell reds those on a consistent basis?

That being said, There is soooo many guides tutorials and how to's out there that it is almost impossible to not find the info you need. A good majority of us have earned piece-mail. ( from patch to patch) so learning curve is not really an issue.

But I can most def. see how a new player would pull out his hair trying to learn all the small things. I do not feel it is to much, I never get sick,

I do not even remember the last time I was sick. And I am anal about my inv. space. So I am always to looking to cut things out of it. I do not carry tet pills, or chlorine tabs at all. It was just so long since needed them I did not see the point.

[Friendly Timo]

Originally posted by Ar Murazor:

Originally posted by  Maximum Glove Gaming :

The thing is, there's several reasons why this is a stupid game mechanic.

Even for repair and drive cars there are some surprises.

Talking about that, my illness got fixed. I found a car, moved all my belongings there in an attempt to relocate to safer area to heal, find some tetra and yeah, you guessed. The car launched into the space and I was healed when it came crashing down.

This game is way too funny :) I am not a new player either, nearing 800 hours and still trying to figure these things out like WTF is going on at times :D

[Bebop]

The game is not new player friendly which worries me because the longevity of the community depends on the only people who are supporting it: new players.