Positive and Negative feedback

[Immo]

Ver 0.7 played on Xbox One X

POSITIVE FEEDBACK:   Mostly positive regarding a game that helps creativity, construction and problem solving.  Fun unique world, great graphics and enemies.  Amazing game to kill time and enjoy company of friends in the chat room.

NEGATIVE FEEDBACK:   Unfortunately I hate unique items and the problems they have caused me and my friends. As I see it,  Grounded is NOT a co-op game….I think it is better described as a COMPETITIVE LIMITED RESOURCE HORDING GAME with some co-op features.   The game is competitive because of unique/limited resource items.  Obsidian needs to consider eliminating unique items and/or allow player permissions for visiting players to fix this problem.  Perhaps discussing the situation with a gaming psychologist could lend more insight to long term game design and/or ideas to encourage gamer behavior….right now hording behavior is being encouraged.  Is this really what the game is supposed to be like?   Im ready to stop playing.  

Please fix and /or provide corrective features to defeat malicious players visiting a game.  Please help prevent gamers from hiding, hording, or destroying unique items.   Please also consider the malignant gamer that will enter someone’s world and proceed horde items and “recycle” the first floor of a skyscraper, thus bringing hundreds of hours of work crashing to the ground from every floor above.  These features have the potential of ruining your game before it even launches.

I HAVE NOT had a good multiplayer experience in this game due to malicious pranksters and/or selfish visitors to my game. I feel the limited resource items/unique items are a broken mechanic….and should probably re-spawn on each game session.  Unique items are a competitive feature that encourages selfishness and hording AND has potential to harass a map owner and/or hinder research progress.  Something needs to be added to help combat malicious/selfish players.

Let me explain:

When I originally began playing (Jan 2021)  several players entered my game and:

1. researched everything before I had a chance to discover and research anything,
2. they spent raw science
3. they harvested muscle sprouts and mint then and hid the items for their own personal use.  What if they ever returned to my game…doesn’t matter if they are selfish anyway.
4. I had similar experiences regarding rotten bee armor, rotten ant club, rotten larva blade, etc etc.
5. I’ve only recently discovered muscle sprouts with 0.7 update (they now re-spawn) never even seen them before today or had a chance to use them.
6. on a few occasions my buildings were recycled into a pile of parts    

As of update ver 0.7,   I no longer wish to play this game as multiplayer because of the selfish and malicious behaviors I’ve mentioned above.  What if all mu mint was lost/used up by a visiting player?  What if a unique item was destroyed before being researched?  If a game is set to single player after unique items are lost or inaccessible progress is hindered or lost forever.….who wants to kill a wolf spider solo without mint mallet because there is no mint in the game?  Limited resources/unique items will ruin the game experience because it forces players to horde (or hide) materials intended for team use.  It also encourages visitors to join a game and be concerned only with locating limited materials, thereby preventing the host access to  unique materials.  If a host hasn’t played Grounded before or is unaware of secrets in the game...are they at a disadvantage of playing,  would they stop playing out of frustration?    In my case, Ive never seen muscle sprouts until ver 0.7, and had to beg a visiting player to release rotten items so I could research them.   Visiting veteran players (or hostile players) have potential to ruin new player games, prevent research, limit resources, and overall provide a less than fun experience for a new player because of limited resources/unique items.  In my own game unique items have caused arguments, and hording. Im sure there are more examples how limited resources are negative in a co-op game but hopefully no further examples are needed to illustrate the problem.

Possible Fixes and/or solutions:

1. Please add an option in the debug menu to reset all unique items
2. Please allow the owner of a world an option to recall (debug menu?) all visiting player inventories and backpacks.  The items should recall to the original map spawn and be accessible by host only (recall all items not just missing backpacks) What if the visitor never re-join your game?   Items are lost forever….
3. How about letting world owner be THE ONLY person to spend raw science OR make it an option to toggle ON/OFF option for visitors?
4. How about letting the world owner purchase discovered unique items from BURGL?
5. Make unique items re-spawn at default locations every time the game loads.  If you are worried about OP items then don’t allow items to be repaired therefore forcing item to be used up and/or available next gaming session.  Give me a fix tomorrow for the jerk who is playing in my game today.   
6. How about some kind of X-ray vision that lets the world owner see hidden storage chests?  OR items being horded in a visiting players inventory?

Thank you for considering my player feedback.  I hope it is helpful for your long term plans for Grounded.

Sincerely,

Immo