Don't fix waterpumps

[ATao 15]

Pretty please? It's so much more interesting searching for water ponds now! 

[Exorade 214]

Fix the pumps and let this guy search for water ponds by himself.

[11tw 106]

The game is harder now, that's for sure...

how about a compromise? Wells will function at variable levels of effectiveness.

Some will give dirty water which needs filtering and boiling/purifying

Some will give bacterially infected water

Some will give very little water (this will be reset by rain)

Some will give lots of pure water

There will be no way to tell which of these is the case just by looking. This would finally allow us to make use of the water purification tablets.

[Exorade 214]

The game is harder now, that's for sure...

how about a compromise? Wells will function at variable levels of effectiveness.

Some will give dirty water which needs filtering and boiling/purifying

Some will give bacterially infected water

Some will give very little water (this will be reset by rain)

Some will give lots of pure water

There will be no way to tell which of these is the case just by looking. This would finally allow us to make use of the water purification tablets.

 

That's no doubt the devs intention.

[Fern Baron 128]

 This would finally allow us to make use of the water purification tablets.

 

Water purification tablets can be currently used on water collected from ponds and streams.

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

Water purification tablets can be currently used on water collected from ponds and streams.

With no effect as the water is still safe to drink without.

[Fern Baron 128]

*throws away water purification tablets*

[majo 23]

I'd like to see some pumps rusty so you'll need a wrench pipe to make them work. :thumbsup:

[gibonez 3633]

The pumps make the game entirely too easy.

They should remove all of the water pumps and instead add persistent objects like water collection barrels and tarps.

[Evil Minion 943]

Fix the pumps but reduce their number to 20-25% and randomize between the current locations for each server. Similar to helicopter crashes but more permanent and less rare.

[cheeseburger8 80]

How about this?

 

The water pumps have a set amount of "clicks" Let's say 50.

 

You can click "Drink Water From Pump" 50 times before it runs out of water.

 

Filling a canteen takes up 10 of those clicks, and a waterbottle takes up 5 clicks.

[eno 1049]

Figured I'd bump this instead of make a new thread. Definitely would like to see the pumps provide a less reliable source of water. Any further thoughts on how to achieve this?

[Whyherro123 2283]

Really, in my (wilderness survival-trained) opinion, having water wells in literally every fucking town makes survival trivial. 

 

The "real" limitation on long-term survival, even in a temperate deciduous forest, where water liquid water is readily available, is "potable" water, that is, water that is safe to drink. Water taken straight from a stream, a pond, or some ditch alongside a road is not safe to drink, not "as is". You have to treat it before you drink it, through boiling, filtration, chemical treatment, etc. 

 

So, what does this mean for the wells in Chernarus?

 

Firstly, there are a fuckton of "natural" water sources all across Chernarus; streams, small ponds, even ditches alongside roads. I am willing to bet that 99% of the time in-game, you are within 5 minutes of a water source. There is plenty of water "available", so all of the water pumps are really just extraneous.

 

Relatedly, almost every settlement in the game is less than 5 minutes away from another one. Not just big cites/towns, but the tiny little hamlets on a side road. And, 99% of them will have at least one hand-pump. Many have more. For, really, no reason.

 

So, what do the above points mean? That the number of wells in-game need to be cut back, significantly in my opinion, if the devs want to take "survival" in any way seriously.

 

Chernarus isn't some Third-World country. War-torn, rural, yes, but not objectively poor. The houses are well built, and people have personal vehicles, TVs, electricity, etc. Now, does this mean every town is hooked up to municipal water? Probably not, considering Chernarus doesn't have a Water/Wastewater treatment plant, but it does probably mean that most houses are hooked up to private wells. Wells that require electricity to function. Electricity that, after the apocalypse, is no longer available. Therefore, immediate access to potable water is cut off.

 

So, what does the removal of 95% of the wells mean for the game?

 

1) Players will move more "slowly" across the map, as they can't just sprint from well to well any more. They have to stick near water sources, and when weight gets implemented, will find out that water is heavy. 1 gallon of water weighs about 8 lbs.

 

2) Safe drinking water becomes more of a priority. Now, instead of gulping down some water at every town, you would have to plan ahead, look at a map, and think "now, there is a valley between those hills, there could be a stream there....". You would also have to treat this water, either from boiling, filtering, or chemically-treating the water. This makes fire-building + water-boiling / filter building / the supply of chemical tabs an actual important thing to think about. You would have to carry around an empty pot for boiling, or save some charcoal from a fire to fill a bottle with to serve as a filter, etc

 

3) The remaining wells would become valuable. Anyone play the first Fallout game? It had a faction of "water merchants", that traveled across the Wasteland trading water for things. SO, if there is only a couple of wells across the map, clans would actually have something worth fighting each other over, and would serve as something to build a base around. They control the water, and "charge" (in various forms of loot for barter" for use. Freshspawns could trade for water, or go fuck off and boil pondwater. Other clans would attack in order to take control of the well, in order for that golden teat, and the controlling clan could sponsor "water merchants" that travel between settlements, in return for a cut of the profits.

 

Hell, the devs don't even have to actually remove the wells. Just make them "broken" and missing necessary parts, like the trucks/vehicles. That way, they could include "parts for a hand-pump well" as part of industrial loot. Some enterprising loner or unaligned clan could find these parts, "fix" a well, and compete for the "water trade". Or, you know, hoard the parts in their base, and use them when they want water at a broken well...

 

TL;DR: removing/"breaking" the overwhelming majority of the hand-pumps across Chernarus would be of great benefit to the game. It would make the game harder, for one, and prompt various forms of interaction.

[MrAerospace 87]

Well, yes! :D

There's a reason we invented them IRL...they are a safe source of water, and that needs to be reflected in DayZ. However, the advantage of a pump could be balanced out with a lot of disadvantages too.

 - Cancelling actions should not provide any benefits. It's an exploit that applies to pretty much every animation in game.

- Make pumps fallible, repairable and replaceable:  Pumps have conditions like other items; pristine, worn, damaged, ruined. Having a complex system where understanding how pumps and their parts work, how to repair them using looted or makeshift parts, or just simply using brute force, using a crowbar, axe or sledgehammer to remove the concrete top and using a rope and bucket to collect water instead. It would add a great additional mini-game for players to accomplish.

- Make more than just the one type of well. Bucket wells, rotary pumps, rope pumps and fountains (there are spring and gravity fed fountains that will continue to function long after humans are gone. Each of these having their own unique issues/problems to solve. 

- Make them much more exposed and dangerous to take water from. Many old villages are built around a community well or fountain, which are often found in the middle of the town square, with very little cover to hide behind. 

- Make the output of pumps much less reliable. Drinking or filling bottles directly from pumps gets you soaked and collects ridiculously small amounts of water, using pre-existing basins or finding a bucket first would be better.

- Make pumping water an actual task. Spamming a button like a QTE is a pretty darn good simulation of what actual pumping feels like. Have a constantly lowering water level, that needs to get above a certain point before the water actually flows. 

[scriptfactory 620]

Water pumps are fine. The hydration mechanic itself needs to be balanced. Balance hydration so that you NEED to carry around at least one canteen, probably more. When dehydrated reduce characters' speed and stamina. Done.

[eno 1049]

Water pumps are fine. The hydration mechanic itself needs to be balanced. Balance hydration so that you NEED to carry around at least one canteen, probably more. When dehydrated reduce characters' speed and stamina. Done.

 

What's done? All you're proposing is balancing a mechanic (that is coming anyway) that just makes the journey between known functioning water sources take longer.

Edited September 12, 2015 by ENO75

[nl 986]

With no effect as the water is still safe to drink without.

Well, there seems to be no harm drinking from ponds if you are already healthy but in experimental 0.58 when I drank from natural water sources as a fresh spawn it made me sick and I died.

 

Edit: oh damn, one year old post...lol...never mind.

Edited September 12, 2015 by SAK

[scriptfactory 620]

What's done? All you're proposing is balancing a mechanic (that is coming anyway) that just makes the journey between known functioning water sources take longer.

 

Exactly. Leave water pumps alone. They serve a specific purpose in this game and that should stay the way it is.

[eno 1049]

Exactly. Leave water pumps alone. They serve a specific purpose in this game and that should stay the way it is.

 

Interesting that you would say that... I'm not sure saying that any one element of the game is as it is intended to be and the same applies to the availability of water pumps. They work now just like zombies worked in .57... Did the zombies work the way they were intended? No... Did they serve a specific purpose? Probably. Well then- I suppose the same could be said for water pumps (I hope.) 

Edited September 12, 2015 by ENO75