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I love the idea of buggies used for traversal. I want to flesh traveling just a little bit more with a suggestion that doesnt rely on buggies or ziplines. SUGGESTION: I think its safe to assume that alot of players in Grounded came from gamepass so i'd like to turn our attention to another phenomenal gamepass game: Jusant. Jusant had an incredible climbing mechanic based around stamina management and the amount of pins the player that could be upgraded. I think Grounded should adopt a similar climbing mechanic. Have the players be able to climb vertical walls, stems, incline rocks, pots, etc. Using their hands and stamina. This would obviously be limited by distance and stamina drained. However, if we can take some bug parts and make either a special bug armor or climbing equipment we could expand the distance and enhance stamina drain during climbs. I feel like climbing can open up the design of some environments and also make traversal more rewarding. We could even have special items tucked away nocks and crannies that can only be found by climbing. I think having different options for traversal is good to cater to different kinds of players.

In Grounded I did not like that I had to travel all the way back to my base in order to craft food, smoothies, or in general anything that can aid in my travel or fighting. Ziplines are not the right answer as you still have to travel to built ziplines in another location, and theyre also not fun. Recently I played Outward and my word. That game does traversal with items and craftables perfectly. Instead of being bounded to one location in Outward you can bring utilities along with you. So, my SUGGESTION: Allow the players to craft portable utilities that can be placed down and picked back up without having to recycle any parts. To make things a bit more balanced. The portable utilities wont be as effective as permanent utilities. For instance a portable version of a smoothie would be a small chemistry flask that can easily mix a few items together but the effects wont be as potent or the amount of items will be limited. We could even make smoothies be made in batches of 3 in permanent utilities and with the small flask only 1. Another example would be a skillet made of bug parts that can be used to make food thats better than roasting aphids and weevils but less advanced than a cooking stove. To reiterate the whole point of these portable utilities would be encourage the Nomad playstyle. Players that dont want to be bounded to one specific location and can move around the entire map without having to go back to one location. A true adventurer playstyle.

Harvesting bug parts is a big part of the game but some bugs often times never give you what you need. This is not really a fix to an issue, It’s more of a change to a mechanic. So with so much time spent collecting big parts I think it would be fun to be able to choose which part of the bug you get to harvest. For instance: You just killed a wolf spider and you are given the option to harvest (essentially pick) which parts of the arachnid that you want to keep before the rest of the body is ruined. So let’s say you’re given 5 picks, you could choose to slice 3 legs off that count as spider chunk, and then slice the fangs off which count as 2 parts. Or slice the body and grab the venom inside (which counts as a harvest) You could then grab 3 venoms an then get 1 fang and one spider chunk for a total of 5 harvested items. We could go in-depth and make the tier of the weapon dictate how much could be collected from the bug. (More effective weapon > cleaner kill > less ruined body ala. RDR2 hunting mechanic) Some body parts could be accessible by certain type of weapons like daggers to avoid puncturing boiling glands/venom sacs, hammers to squish spider sacs to extract spider web etc.

Yeah that's the sort of "quests" that I'm talking about. Not necessarily talking to the bugs but just helping some out for benefits.

I havent seen many people talk about it but Carnivorous plants could be introduced as a new enemy type! Bug types should be vulnerable to different types of weapons that way some tools would not make others obsolete. Example once we get the Mint Mallet the bug hammer is useless unless you want to use it with a torch. The bug hammer could be perfect for a specific enemy type so it wont be completely replaced by the mint mallet.

I've already fallen in love with this game and I only wish to see it grow. That being said the game should introduce memorable NPC bug characters that can give us quests. (Similar to BURGL)

I love the gas mask that you have to craft in order to get to a certain part of the map. That being said I wish they were more inaccessible places on the backyard that can only be accessed with specific tools or craftable items. Some examples could be high to reach places that require climbing gear (or stairs needed to be built it doesnt have to be tools)

The woah! Difficulty is no joke I die constantly but the problem is not death, it's the lack of serious consequences. So far I noticed that when I die I dont really lose anything just my pride and a little bit of time. It would be important to have some sort of repercussion to death. Maybe phobias can be added (like on The Outer Worlds) Death could be tied in with the repairing tools mechanic. For instance if you die to spiders all your tools will be covered in spider web and you wont be able to use them unless they are fixed. The tools could be covered in acid/poison which could ruin your food, sap etc.

I domt agree with the minimap being a must. There is so much fun about going out and using landmarks like the rotten apple, or certain juice boxes to guide your way.