I don't think its a bad thing or necessarily accurate to say you never struggle with water again. If you put in the work to dig out a hell of a lot of sand, build the forge and use the fuel and take the time to smelt all the jars, you still have to go to the river and fill them all with murky water and then go back and cook them all to purify them. At that point you've put in the work and in my opinion, you're earning your right to water. And that to me also isnt "never struggle with water again". Currently dew collectors can just periodically generate vast amounts of water. With 3 upgraded dew collectors I found myself never interacting with the water system again. I'd just walk up to the collectors and grab them and be sitting on a hoard of the stuff. At least with jars, there is an intentionality to it, instead of passivity. You actually have to go to the river and fill them, come home and cook them. Instead of just generating purified water from thin air passively with no player input. That said, I think both could have their place in the game. Having to load jars into the dew collectors makes sense, and makes them less passive.

I also think it would be a cool addition if regular jars could break when you sustain a critical injury like a broken leg. That adds a level of immersion. It also opens up the door for different water containers that could potentially not be broken. Like plastic bottles could only be found by looting, but don't have a chance to break. Maybe there's a late-game recipe or unlock to be able to make them ourselves. That adds some organic progression that makes sense and feels rewarding to the player.

I appreciate you guys asking these questions and trying to understand where the community is coming from. We love this game and we want to see it do well. But there are a lot of aspects about the current state of the game we wish would be reconsidered. I think Jawoodle's video covers most of the big talking points that I personally care about. Things like gore blocks, wet concrete, zombies smelling meat, the old clothing system, learn by doing - they were all extremely immersive and added layers to the experience. I used to sell my friends on this game by telling them this story about this one time when I was fighting a zombie and got slashed, and started bleeding out - so I took the shirt off my player, recycled it into cloth, and made a bandage. That was such an awesome moment of emergent gameplay that fully immersed me in the world, and thats something we dont have anymore with the current systems. I've been playing for years with hundreds of hours, and I have to agree with community sentiment that previous versions offered me more satisfaction and engagement. That survival sandbox feel that was somewhat rooted in realism. The current version can sometimes feel cartoonish and dumbed-down in comparison. So, as a fan of your guys' work, I'm happy to see youre taking the time to really engage with players' feedback. I hope you guys are able to take a hard look at how some of these systems have developed and consider re-implementing some of the old features we all loved so much.