Feedback : Game Design tweaks & Quality of Life improvements

[ItsVexx]

Here is the few things I figured out after 20 hours of playing in WOAH! Difficulty Solo and Co-op.

 

Insects:

• Spiders should be alot fewer and be a more lethal threat: The Orb Weaver's web spit never hit its target, and its bite is really easy to perfect blocks, the same with the Wolf Spider's bite, its jumping attack is a bit more complicated to perfect block and deal alot more damage, that really the only thing that make the Wolf Spider a bigger threat.More patterns should make them more difficult, maybe multi-attacks like the Larvae's one where you need to perfect block each of one to not take damage, an improvement of the web spit which create a AoE in the ground like the Bombardier Beetle that stuck you in the ground if you walk in, there is alot that can be done.
  Now talking about the number of spiders that can be encountered: too many. I really don't know if a population control like the ant is planned later in the game, but currently you stumble every 5 minutes on a spider. Plus the fact that they are really easy to kill when you have the experience make it only an annoyance, there is maybe just too much spider's den.

• Bombardier Beetle probably the hardest bug, but not for the good reasons, In short: its acid splash cone AoE attack. Too quick, too lethal, very few cues that it will make it and super hard to dodge, sometimes you only need to strafe around him to dodge it, but most of the times it just lock you and turn during the animation making it impossible to dodge. I don't know if it's intended but it makes this bug a pain in an ass to beat. Plus the fact that its charge attack has almost the same animation make cues that it make this attack really hard to spot in the short amount of time before it make it.

• Larvae, probably just a bug, but its multi-attacks have difficulties to connect, even when you're really close to it.

 

Inventory management, chests management:

• Armors and quick bar items should not take places in inventory: To go to the adventure, you need a Armor (Three pieces) some foods, a canteen, bandages, a weapon, a hammer, an axe, maybe a shovel, a bow and arrows (maybe multiples types of arrows), just by stuffing yourself, the third maybe the half of your inventory is taken, I think it's an intended Game Design, it discourage greatly long trips in the wild, and encourage short trips to seek specific things. For the moment it's not hyper bothersome, but when the game will become larger with more differents items to pick, it will become a real problem. Just my 2 cents on this specific thing.

• It doesn't seem to be enough slot in the quickpouch bar, eight is too few, again you need weapon, tools, drink, foods in it and maybe more in the future, it's not convenient to swap items between hotbar and  inventory that often. Also the fact in PC you can't scroll items in your bar to select them (like in minecraft) is really downside to this feature and  push mouse and keyboard user to play with the radial menu. It's hard to have the perfect world for this, maybe allow to have 1 or 2 quickbar swappable with a touch, or expend to quick bar to 10 is a solution (solutions which ask heavy UI redesign), or a smart system that switch to the correct tool when you press a button, or a auto feed button. There's a lot of solutions for this I think.

• It will be cool to have the now famously requested deposit stacks button, but I would also suggest more, like a quick sort (in inventory and chests) , a quick deposit: there's already tag management for containers why not utilise it fully, that would be the caviar of Quality of Life (but maybe a pain in the ass to implement in the game?).

 

Bases and building:

• In general base building is really intuitive and fun, but when you decide to build on top of a rock or on a soda can and the fun is gone, there is just too much of restriction when it come to clipping stairs, roofs, walls into pre-existing object (rocks, can etc.) and make really hard to come up with fun ideas that work.

• Regrowth mechanic, don't seems to work or work as expected: cutting down the root of a grass doesn't prevent it to regrow, if it's intended then it restrict base building a big downside.

• Larvae raids are really too destructive when it come to grounded base, if you can't take them down quickly they destroy your base an chests really to quickly, even if you try to build reinforcement, and if they break a chest with stuff in it, be ready for 3 minutes of diaporama at 1FPS. The mechanic of raids, and having to protect your base in really fun, but there is issues when it comes to bug destroying your chests and lagging the **** out of you when all the items pop off, the fact that it take 2 or 3 hits of a larvae to destroy one is maybe too few.

 

Perfect blocking/armors on WOAH! Difficulty:

• I think it's a big issues right now, perfect blocks should prevent armors from taking damage, in WOAH! Difficulty and solo, the only defensive option to take down bugs is to perfect blocks, tanking it is just madness, and strafing doesn't seems to work consistently. All of this making you repairing your armor after one fight, maybe it's intended but here's what happen next: I just don't wear armors anymore, and there's no death penalty and most of the bugs are easily manageable with perfect blocking. (Btw Pefect Block feels really good and is a cool mechanic.)

 

Now a thing that is a personal point of view : Death Penalty and Save System.

• I think Grounded qualify itself as a survival game, but it is in a really bizarre ground: you can manually save the game, and if you die you can re-pickup all of your stuff. There is no real penalty to dying beside making the road to your stuff and try again, and better you can save before taking a combat and reload until you succeed. Once you get that there is not really any tension anymore and the game lose of his "survival" side. It's inherent to a another survival game which I played name Green Hell, where the death penalty is so inexistent that letting you die is the easiest way to cure from sickness, replenish your hunger, sanity, etc. and Grounded is no stranger to that.

 

Miscs:

• Swimming at 1st person view is a tad broken when it come to swim above the water

• The blurry depth of field should be configurable, and turned off.

• You should be able to write feedback like this, in the feedback tab in-game.

 

Hope this insight will help the game, i'm not native English hope it's understandable.

[Anvilrage]

I like most of what you had to say.  Honestly having the benefit of saving before a fight is what allowed me to learn the Wolf Spider battle.  Playing solo it’s a tough beast to crack.

That said the only thing I think would be difficult for Obsidian is to NOT put your armor and weapons in your backpack inventory.  (Or give it a side bar of inventory that doesn’t take up standard slots).  Because when you die, you retrieve your backpack, and all your gear.  If your pack is full there would be no way to obtain your gear as it’s not “in your backpack”.

[Thanotos]

The penalty to dying is that you failed, you shouldn't need some random arbitrary cost to make failure hurt more, if you can't be bothered to have enough pride to dislike losing a fight then don't demand others suffer and loose a feature the genre has been starved of forever so you can tick a random box on your personal needs list, if you need more of a cost, just start a new game every time you die, and let the rest of us have fun,

[Zero_Daye]

I agree with Thanotos, although a little less aggressively .  There are ways to add complexity to the game without imposing your will on the rest of the player base e.g. don't go pick up your items if you die, start a new game like previously mentioned, build a base in a risky area. 

Bugs being able to raid chests from the ground when the chests are two floors up should not be able to happen.
Bugs clipping into your base without destroying walls

Base walls moving up after log in e.g. i have walls on the first floor now poking through the second floors

[ItsVexx]

1 hour ago, Anvilrage said:

I like most of what you had to say.  Honestly having the benefit of saving before a fight is what allowed me to learn the Wolf Spider battle.  Playing solo it’s a tough beast to crack.

That said the only thing I think would be difficult for Obsidian is to NOT put your armor and weapons in your backpack inventory.  (Or give it a side bar of inventory that doesn’t take up standard slots).  Because when you die, you retrieve your backpack, and all your gear.  If your pack is full there would be no way to obtain your gear as it’s not “in your backpack”.

I really don't know if it is that simple but: they can replace the backpack UI when it's on the ground after you die by the chest UI (which have more slot than you inventory), but it will be pick-up only. It will give room for the armor which is not counted in your inventory slot in this scenario.

1 hour ago, Thanotos said:

The penalty to dying is that you failed, you shouldn't need some random arbitrary cost to make failure hurt more, if you can't be bothered to have enough pride to dislike losing a fight then don't demand others suffer and loose a feature the genre has been starved of forever so you can tick a random box on your personal needs list, if you need more of a cost, just start a new game every time you die, and let the rest of us have fun,

First of all you seems to put word in my mouth, I don't want Obsidian to "loose" a feature, on contrary I think it's a waste of ressource, if I would need to suggest something is quite the contrary and add a feature to let the player decide if they want a more "survival" experience or not, like a difficulty option.
Second, having or not having pride doesn't take away the fact that there is no pressure considering taking a fight or not with the current system, when a game don't punish you for trying a fight unprepared, then there is nothing pulling you from trying it, and by the same way take away the pressure on winning the fight.
I really think you are not wrong though, there is a world of players, everyone have their fun from differents ways, and that why I disclaimed this last part with "Now a thing that is a personal point of view".

4 minutes ago, Zero_Daye said:

I agree with Thanotos, although a little less aggressively .  There are ways to add complexity to the game without imposing your will on the rest of the player base e.g. don't go pick up your items if you die, start a new game like previously mentioned, build a base in a risky area. 

Bugs being able to raid chests from the ground when the chests are two floors up should not be able to happen.
Bugs clipping into your base without destroying walls

Base walls moving up after log in e.g. i have walls on the first floor now poking through the second floors

I agree with you and Thanotos too,  personal challenges are a way to add complexity, but I feel personally more engaged into the game when the challenges are made from the game itself and not by myself where I can loosen the rules when I feel like it. And again, I think the idea is not to strip the game from these feature but add more features to please both worlds.

[Thanotos]

I came out to forcefully there, and i am sorry for it,

I personally love the lower pressure environment the saves provide, and indeed i want it to be expanded upon, that said, i also do not oppose the addition of a hardcore option that limits you to only 1 save and if all 4 kids die it's game over save deleted, options are always good, especially for solo mode,

[Zero_Daye]

On 8/4/2020 at 11:40 AM, ItsVexx said:

I really don't know if it is that simple but: they can replace the backpack UI when it's on the ground after you die by the chest UI (which have more slot than you inventory), but it will be pick-up only. It will give room for the armor which is not counted in your inventory slot in this scenario.

First of all you seems to put word in my mouth, I don't want Obsidian to "loose" a feature, on contrary I think it's a waste of ressource, if I would need to suggest something is quite the contrary and add a feature to let the player decide if they want a more "survival" experience or not, like a difficulty option.
Second, having or not having pride doesn't take away the fact that there is no pressure considering taking a fight or not with the current system, when a game don't punish you for trying a fight unprepared, then there is nothing pulling you from trying it, and by the same way take away the pressure on winning the fight.
I really think you are not wrong though, there is a world of players, everyone have their fun from differents ways, and that why I disclaimed this last part with "Now a thing that is a personal point of view".

I agree with you and Thanotos too,  personal challenges are a way to add complexity, but I feel personally more engaged into the game when the challenges are made from the game itself and not by myself where I can loosen the rules when I feel like it. And again, I think the idea is not to strip the game from these feature but add more features to please both worlds.

I agree, more modes would be useful and not just a lets increase a bug count or increase health stats either. Right now i am more concerned they are having some major issues with game bugs. When you patch a APP and that causes more bugs there is a larger problem at play that needs to be addressed. I think they should introduce a weekly downtime schedule to repair bugs in a timely manner or the player base will shrink down to only those that are die-hards and loose a lot of the general player base.