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Water Balancing


Pat_Bren

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Water seems to be a sticky issue around here. There have been lots of suggestions about water, including purification (theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/14466-water-purify-idea) and lots about collection (usually, and correctly in my view) that any open container outside should collect water (eg. garbage cans, or mugs, or anything capable of normally holding water). These, I believe, are obvious things that should be implemented, but pretty much break the entire "thirst" system.

 

To balance this, I suggest introducing evaporation. Water should evaporate from the sinks, toilets etc. that a lot of people rely on when the water works are turned off. Water would evaporate from every container that doesn't have a top (ie. not bottles).

 

I would also suggest adding a tooltip (not a really specific one, I know the devs hate that) something like, "Drink (2 bottles remaining)" or "Drink (<1 bottle remaining" or finally, "Drink (a single drop remaining)" the last one perhaps randomly added to previously dry taps to give the player a teeny tiny random chance.

 

If this is still unbalanced, the devs could implement water freezing during cold weather, bursting the bottles and making most of it be lost when the water ice in the bottles thaws out. AND, you obviously can't drink ice, so any frozen water would have to be thawed in a bowl over a fire to get it.

 

I think this would re-balance water's end game and keep it as a viable game mechanic for longer. As it stands, a house beside the river or a rain collector barrel, as well as a bowl and a campfire, basically frees the player from having to worry anymore about water. These changes would fix that, I think.

 

EDIT: Obviously, if a bottle is not full, it won't burst on freezing (freshwater expands 9% on freezing according to Wikipedia, so if there's that much space remaining in a bottle it won't burst. But that means a player will have to spill 9% of their water onto the ground or into another container).

 

AND, also, I think open containers filled with water that are not on the player's person should get re-tainted after a while. The reason given for this could be things like lots of dead insects floating in it, or rat droppings etc.

 

This means bottles will be hugely important in gameplay value, but also can become useless which will keep it interesting.

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I agree this needs fixing. I get it's an RPG survival sim so maybe some grinding is to be expected but it hurts when the biggest long-term factor in whether I live or die depends on me sawing 500 pieces of wood so I can make a rain collector (or only ever playing carpenter, or only ever living right by the river).

 

These things aren't fun. "So why do them?" you might well ask - well, because the whole point of any survival game is to survive, and the best path to survival currently involves me doing large amounts of grind or living in extremely specific locations. A CAREFULLY BALANCED system wherein you can use any/most containers to collect rainwater would really fix things for me, and could reward people who are good at scavenging (rather than just good at grinding out several thousand useless sturdy sticks). 

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It would add something to the game to be able to collect water in any container, but making it too complicated would make it just as limiting (if not moreso) than it is now. If we have a dozen bottles of water saved up only to have them all break open during winter, what's the point? Sure you can take them 1 at a time and drink 1/4 from each one then drop them on the floor so they don't stack with the rest in the container you're trying to take them out of, but imagine having to do that with 2 dozen, or more.

 

I like the idea of open containers of water evaporating or becoming tainted on their own after a while though. I always thought it was silly that we could put a pot of water on a shelf and have it still be full and fit to drink a month later.

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It would add something to the game to be able to collect water in any container, but making it too complicated would make it just as limiting (if not moreso) than it is now. If we have a dozen bottles of water saved up only to have them all break open during winter, what's the point? Sure you can take them 1 at a time and drink 1/4 from each one then drop them on the floor so they don't stack with the rest in the container you're trying to take them out of, but imagine having to do that with 2 dozen, or more.

 

Yeah, the ice bursting bottles was just an idea to keep things from getting too simple. Like, if bottled water stays untainted, and you have lots of bottles with no chance of them ever breaking or going out of existence, I don't see why you'd ever use anything else.

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