This thing was born from initial project idea to make a list of all the features PvP client needs, but decided that going full "in the weeds" on the most important one is the clearest communication I can give to Jorbtar.
Disclaimer: due to following issues, I don't know how to PvP (at least nowhere on the level that people like Snail are able to) despite playing this game for 10 years:
SnuggleSnail wrote:[*] Lack of experience, and no reasonable way to gain it without basically asking somebody to mentor you
[*] Lack of guides / competent wiki
[*] Nothing to push average players into minor conflicts where they can gain experience / confidence
[*] No PVE encounters or similar that give experience that could transfer to PVP
I may miss something important or make other mistakes. I will mark parts where I particularly end up speculating/assuming with red.
THE DEFAULT CLIENT
I doubt anyone taking PvP seriously will ever PvP with default client. However giving it a PvP feature, as long as implemented in even somewhat acceptable way, means less work for anyone aiming to create a PvP viable client. Assuming the feature is does it's job without being obvious downgrade from custom clients, it will also be standardized. Similar to when Jorb relented and added Ctrl+G to the default client.
MAIN TEXT
Asking for this feature is quickly establishing itself as a meme, and while you can bind waterskins to the default hotbar, there are multiple issues with that compared to having "autodrink" -script:
-Amount of waterskins (or other water vessels) you can bind to default hotbar is limited, and you presumably want to bind other stuff into it as well.
-As waterskins run out of water, the button to press for drinking changes.
"Wait, why is drinking water such a big deal in PvP?"
-PvP meta is that one of the sides decides they are the "Team with disadvantage" and starts running away from the other team(s). Ultimately the goal is to drop aggro and Hearth back home, reach a safepali, or rendezvous with reinforcements.
-Running consumes stamina.
-Stamina can be recovered by drinking water, at the cost of Energy.
This means that main deciding factor in a fight is often simply which side has more water (water quality does act as force multiplier.) Autodrink script helps you to make the most effective sips when you are at the stamina range between "too low to run" and "below 90%" (drinking with more than 90% stamina wastes both water and energy as sip is always 0.05 liters and you don't get Energy discount from stamina overflow.
PvP fight has enough stuff going on that you really don't want to be forced to replace keybinds to empty waterskins with ones to filled one, all the while having to keep track which keybinds will actually make you drink.
Imagine if instead of simple WASD movement, Counter-Strike would require you to play a minigame of moving one foot and then another in sync. Of course you can argue that it would raise the game's skill ceiling. However the actual main method to win the match - shooting enemy players with a gun so that they die - already has a rather high skill ceiling. The minigame would just make the game harder to get into and learn properly.