dying of dehydration over and over again

[Baran B.]

maybe the devs need to ****ing update their tutorial because i just played with a friend and we died to dehydration twice. i feel like, maybe, that starting the game where you don't know how to do anything, maybe like food and water can be easier to find at the start maybe and maybe you start losing access to food and water as time goes on, so you know, like, an actual, proper difficulty curve? idk, like, that's just a thought???? idk i'm just a d*mb idi*t who doesn't know anything

[Bif]

Kudos to a great community for doing their level best to help OP Alenthas.

Love the game. Just started a new game on hard mode, completely random new map, defaults top to bottom. I know all the tricks & still died of dehydration.

Sure, some of you are incredible gamers. I respect you to the moon. But unless you completely forgo progression by buying tea out of the overpriced vending machines, you're going to die of dehydration. I mean barring a random stroke of luck like finding a helmet filter or whatever. To be clear: on hard mode. Completely random & default settings.

The dehydration death spiral at the start of a new game is a turd in the punch bowl. It's still good punch and it still makes your head spin a little. But let's be straight-up honest--the game would be better without this. So let's fix it already.

[Baran B.]

Originally posted by Bif:

Kudos to a great community for doing their level best to help OP Alenthas.

Love the game. Just started a new game on hard mode, completely random new map, defaults top to bottom. I know all the tricks & still died of dehydration.

Sure, some of you are incredible gamers. I respect you to the moon. But unless you completely forgo progression by buying tea out of the overpriced vending machines, you're going to die of dehydration. I mean barring a random stroke of luck like finding a helmet filter or whatever. To be clear: on hard mode. Completely random & default settings.

The dehydration death spiral at the start of a new game is a turd in the punch bowl. It's still good punch and it still makes your head spin a little. But let's be straight-up honest--the game would be better without this. So let's fix it already.

Frankly for a good while I was surprised that the responses I was getting were quite civil. I'm not used to that in a gaming forum. I was really expecting to get yelled at. I was really getting worried I somehow found myself in some sort of an alternate universe where g*mers are nice people. Thankfully I got a couple of "lol skill issue. You didn't know this game just punched you in the groin sometimes? Why didn't you turned the groin punching option down if you didn't want to be punched in the groin." and "Oh you don't like being punched in the groin? What a scrub" type of comments.

To be clear. I do like challenge in my games. That involves me experiencing the game myself and figuring things out rather than reading a guide and figuring out what I need to do. And it's fine that I would have to read the journal or whatever sometimes to figure some advanced stuff as well, I'm not against that either. But I think it's unreasonable to expect a new player to change settings they know nothing about before they event start the game. Some of these suggestions really don't solve the inherent problem. They're just angry that I don't know the game as well as someone who played it for 300 hours.

[PinkPanther]

Originally posted by Ardele:

Find a water source
Face the water
make sure your hotbar has an empty slot and select that
Press "E" to drink

Pray you don't get sick but the runs are worth it early on.

Get vitamins or a water purifier (it's a mod for a helmet, idiotically imbalanced). Game is easymode from then on and this shows how little the devs thought about the new NOJAR system. Water is never a problem and I personally hate drinking from puddles without consequences. Breaks the immersion and will surely be reworked once again next update or on full release.
So better not get used to this "system"

[Pain Weasel]

Originally posted by Bif:

Kudos to a great community for doing their level best to help OP Alenthas.

Love the game. Just started a new game on hard mode, completely random new map, defaults top to bottom. I know all the tricks & still died of dehydration.

Sure, some of you are incredible gamers. I respect you to the moon. But unless you completely forgo progression by buying tea out of the overpriced vending machines, you're going to die of dehydration. I mean barring a random stroke of luck like finding a helmet filter or whatever. To be clear: on hard mode. Completely random & default settings.

The dehydration death spiral at the start of a new game is a turd in the punch bowl. It's still good punch and it still makes your head spin a little. But let's be straight-up honest--the game would be better without this. So let's fix it already.

Not trying to discount your experience but mine has been the complete opposite.

I am honestly baffled at the wildly different experiences with water, even from experienced players. New players not understanding the mechanic I get, but I feel like I must be missing something because in my experience water isn't much more difficult to get than in previous alphas. A few more steps to get clean water, but no more difficult.

I mean you run a T1 quest and the trader usually offers you 10 water plus some dukes as a reward, enough for a cooking pot if it was a clear quest. Just looting all the containers around a trader's compound will get you enough Forge Ahead magazines to unlock a dew collector and enough water to survive for days. Pretty much every POI I loot nets me a few water, way more than just a few from some.

Playing no trader games is harder, but when I do that I am purposefully making the game more difficult for myself so I can't exactly complain. Even then I've only come close to dying of dehydration once, and that was on an all desert map and the heat was killing me.

What exactly am I missing?

[JABBA69R]

find water on the ground look at it for a few seconds then drink, if you have vitamins take them first before drinking, also look for vending machines to buy food and drinks

[Nani Sore]

The early game is rough and by day seven you have to be ready for the horde. Sometimes I delay playing this game for months because I have to be in the mood to start a new save file it takes alot of energy and I have 1600 hours of experience.

I cannot imagine going back to not knowing all the inner workings and quirks of this game that I use to survive.

I cannot get into project zomboid for the same reason, just too much to learn but I got in on this game during the early days so learned as the game changed.

You have an endless sea of youtube content ahead of you if you want to learn how all the systems actually work like crit resistance and status effects as one example, or what impacts loot stage.

[Bif]

Originally posted by Pain Weasel:

Originally posted by Bif:

Kudos to a great community for doing their level best to help OP Alenthas.

Love the game. Just started a new game on hard mode, completely random new map, defaults top to bottom. I know all the tricks & still died of dehydration.

Sure, some of you are incredible gamers. I respect you to the moon. But unless you completely forgo progression by buying tea out of the overpriced vending machines, you're going to die of dehydration. I mean barring a random stroke of luck like finding a helmet filter or whatever. To be clear: on hard mode. Completely random & default settings.

The dehydration death spiral at the start of a new game is a turd in the punch bowl. It's still good punch and it still makes your head spin a little. But let's be straight-up honest--the game would be better without this. So let's fix it already.

Not trying to discount your experience but mine has been the complete opposite.

I am honestly baffled at the wildly different experiences with water, even from experienced players. New players not understanding the mechanic I get, but I feel like I must be missing something because in my experience water isn't much more difficult to get than in previous alphas. A few more steps to get clean water, but no more difficult.

I mean you run a T1 quest and the trader usually offers you 10 water plus some dukes as a reward, enough for a cooking pot if it was a clear quest. Just looting all the containers around a trader's compound will get you enough Forge Ahead magazines to unlock a dew collector and enough water to survive for days. Pretty much every POI I loot nets me a few water, way more than just a few from some.

Playing no trader games is harder, but when I do that I am purposefully making the game more difficult for myself so I can't exactly complain. Even then I've only come close to dying of dehydration once, and that was on an all desert map and the heat was killing me.

What exactly am I missing?

You missed: "Sure, some of you are incredible gamers." I know you exist, I'm kind of proud of you. But since I am not you, I am still capable of dying of thirst. And the dehydration death spiral is like cutting coke with cowpies. Sure, you'll still take a snort--but now imagine it without the cow poo smell...

[Honorable_D]

How is anyone possibly dying to water when you can just go chug river water? T0 and T1 POI's are so easy even at the start of the game and they'll give you plenty of ways to heal up the damage or even give you dirty water to boil from the loot you'll be getting.

[Pain Weasel]

Originally posted by Bif:

Originally posted by Pain Weasel:

Not trying to discount your experience but mine has been the complete opposite.

I am honestly baffled at the wildly different experiences with water, even from experienced players. New players not understanding the mechanic I get, but I feel like I must be missing something because in my experience water isn't much more difficult to get than in previous alphas. A few more steps to get clean water, but no more difficult.

I mean you run a T1 quest and the trader usually offers you 10 water plus some dukes as a reward, enough for a cooking pot if it was a clear quest. Just looting all the containers around a trader's compound will get you enough Forge Ahead magazines to unlock a dew collector and enough water to survive for days. Pretty much every POI I loot nets me a few water, way more than just a few from some.

Playing no trader games is harder, but when I do that I am purposefully making the game more difficult for myself so I can't exactly complain. Even then I've only come close to dying of dehydration once, and that was on an all desert map and the heat was killing me.

What exactly am I missing?

You missed: "Sure, some of you are incredible gamers." I know you exist, I'm kind of proud of you. But since I am not you, I am still capable of dying of thirst. And the dehydration death spiral is like cutting coke with cowpies. Sure, you'll still take a snort--but now imagine it without the cow poo smell...

I didn't miss that, and I'm far from an incredible gamer.

I'm seriously asking because I'm confused: do traders not give you 10 boiled water as rewards? Do they not give you enough dukes to buy a cooking pot and water filter? Are you not getting 3+ murky water per POI? Is Master Chef not working for you like it should?

If you are having an issue, where exactly is it?

Simply saying "this is bad and needs to change" doesn't narrow down where in the water mechanic the problem is. Is it loot chance, crafting, pois, all of the above?

If, for example, it turns out the issue is related to loot chances or the cost of items like the pot or filters there may be some easy XML edits that could fix the problem. If so, maybe that would be an acceptable change for TFP to make, rather than throwing away the whole water mechanic and starting over.

[Crisius]

Originally posted by Pain Weasel:

I didn't miss that, and I'm far from an incredible gamer.

I'm seriously asking because I'm confused: do traders not give you 10 boiled water as rewards? Do they not give you enough dukes to buy a cooking pot and water filter? Are you not getting 3+ murky water per POI? Is Master Chef not working for you like it should?

If you are having an issue, where exactly is it?

Simply saying "this is bad and needs to change" doesn't narrow down where in the water mechanic the problem is. Is it loot chance, crafting, pois, all of the above?

If, for example, it turns out the issue is related to loot chances or the cost of items like the pot or filters there may be some easy XML edits that could fix the problem. If so, maybe that would be an acceptable change for TFP to make, rather than throwing away the whole water mechanic and starting over.

I personally did not see water as a reward until I hit T3 on this last run where I am playing it through with a friend.

[Pain Weasel]

Originally posted by Crisius:

I personally did not see water as a reward until I hit T3 on this last run where I am playing it through with a friend.

T1 quests should all include the loot group groupQuestResources as one of the rewards, and that group includes 10 boiled water. It won't pop up 100% of the time (it may be 1500 wood, or 500 cobblestone or 10 duct tape etc), but over the course of 7 quest you should see it at least once. You could be getting screwed by RNG and never seeing that option, but that would have to be some really bad luck.

Only T1 quests include that loot group, so you'll never see it on T2+.

One possible fix though would be to change the groupQuestResources loot. Players running T1 quests probably don't need 750 coal, or 500 gun powder right away, maybe to save for later but not immediately. By reducing the number of items in that group it would increase the chances of being offered one of the remaining. It would also be very easy to add a few water as a guaranteed option to T1 quests. Something like that would help provide new players a way to get water, even if RNG hates them, without just handing it to them. It also wouldn't require an overhaul.

[Alucard †]

T1 does seem to include water as reward.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3130350905

[MajNUN]

Enable cheats - give yourself something to drink. You deserve it.

[Palad1n]

Water use to be much easier to find, dirty water, then boil it for clean water. Funpimps over time have decided that was to easy and took a different road, making the game more difficult.

Applying common sense in this "survival" game is something you should avoid, it will give you headaches if you try to rationalize all the change the devs have made that hurts the game more then make it enjoyable to play.

[FT]

Tons of posts on the first page suggesting a new player to drink murky water by hand...Are you all forgetting you get -5hp for every +10hydration this way?

The new players aren't going to have enough heals on-hand to make up for that kind of HP loss.