Basically the Dark Souls of survival building games...

[Knight9910]

...and they just keep making it harder.

[The_Partisan_Spy]

Hi Knight, why do you think the game is hard?

Are you stuck in a certain point? 

I think the game has a moderated level of difficulty as you complete all missions, but after that it becomes super easy. 

[Knight9910]

Literally the entire thing is way, WAY too hard, and most people seem to agree from what I've seen. ( https://www.reddit.com/r/GroundedGame/comments/ru78zo/basically_the_dark_souls_of_survival_building/ - This is where I posted this on the Reddit. It's got over 200 upvotes, and 90% of people upvoted it. I recognize that 90% Upvote does not necessarily equate to 90% of all players being in the same spot I am, but I do think it definitely shows some degree of solidarity. This isn't just one fringe lunatic's hot take.)

Supposedly, once you've reached the end of the progression, then the game becomes easy. Making your way THERE is a massive slog. All you do is just die your way through the game, struggling against impossible challenges in an environment where intelligent strategy is punished rather than rewarded. Use a bow? The enemy runs away and gets instantly full healed. I could just exploit the bad pathing, spend 15 minutes running around a stem to get a bug stuck on it, then another 15 minutes when they manage to get off of it... until the developers fix that little glitch... or I could spend just as long save scumming and berserker charging - which is what the devs obviously WANT me to do - until I finally get lucky.

And every new update just makes it even harder, with heavy nerfs to the player and buffs to everything else. And when they're not making the game harder, they're just making it more tedious. Like, what was even the point of nerfing permafood? Food isn't even the focus of the game. The focus of the game is on exploration and building. At least that WAS the focus, before they made it so my basket full of permafood I had stored (as in, the ENTIRE basket) only refills about half my hunger bar, and now I'm back to having to spend most of each in game day hunting to not starve instead of actually playing the game.

Or for that matter, bandages now only giving me like 2% of my health bar back. Yeah, I love spending 6 real life hours on every "dungeon" because I have to stand around doing nothing for 30 minutes to heal after every fight.

And the condescending "tips" people give are all worthless. People telling me "oh, just use the Antlion Greatsword" because they think I have one of those when I'm struggling to kill a Ladybug with my +5 Mosquito Rapier which is another thing people told me I absolutely needed but it can't kill anything... or my full set of Ladybug Armor which USED to actually be good back when I got it, before one of the brilliant updates changed it so it has about the same defensive value as a wet paper bag. And I can't even fix it when it breaks, because they buffed ladybugs to a point where my best weapon doesn't even make their health bar move, but they one-shot me straight through full spider armor.

I feel like these people are just playing on Creative, and then go online to front about how the game is "way too easy" because they desperately want people to think of them as "professional, elite gamers." And the problem is that the developers can't tell whether people are playing legitimately or not, but these are the people who talk the loudest, so that's who the developers listen to. And they're trying to balance the game for people who think it's too easy because they're cheating, and the overwhelming majority of people who are struggling in the game (reminder: that Reddit post got 90% upvoted) all get left in the dust. And I can't even change it from Medium (which USED to be fine) to Mild difficulty to see if that might help without saying goodbye to ALL of my progress, because apparently being able to change difficulty in-game was just a glitch.

Edited January 4, 2022 by Knight9910

[The_Partisan_Spy]

Maybe because I play the game since the demo version, I have a different point of view. I honestly think the game is easy and should be made harder. I read twice your comment and most of your struggles can be solved with game knowledge. I am not saying the game is perfect, far from there... There is still a bunch of things that should be optimized. Again, I would be glad to help and change your opinion if you make me objective questions. I don't want to speculate about your difficulties as other did on your Reddit post.

Meanwhile... In November, I did a full run of the game in medium level while live streaming. It took me 12 hours to complete 100% of the game. My only struggle was the transition between Tier 1 to Tier 2 weapons as the new weapon system changed a bit the game progression. The way I solved it was leveling up my Insect Axe to level 5. A great tool / weapon to kill top tier creatures in the starting area of the game (+ a weevil shield). 

As the streams are quite long, I don't expect you to watch it, but in any case, here it is: 

Session 1: 

 

Session 2: 

 

[Knight9910]

Well, I think that says all that needs to be said, doesn't it? Like I said, the post I made was 90% upvoted, which proves that the overwhelming majority of people disagree with you. This isn't just one person having a rough time. You can't just blow this off with a video link, and a little condescending concern trolling about how you'd "love to help me." This isn't about ME being helped or not helped. This is 90%. 90% say YOU ARE WRONG. Now, far be it for me to say that you have to change your opinion just because the masses say so... however, it is more than fair to say that you should, no, you MUST acknowledge that fact.

As a so-called "influencer" who creates content for the game, you are someone that the developers listen to. You aren't just making videos, you are acting as a representative for the entire player base. As such, yes, you are ethically obligated to actually represent us. Even if you personally think the game is easy, when 90% are saying it's way too hard, then you are ethically obligated to say the same, because you are our representative. I'm sorry, I know this sounds unfair - you're literally being told to give up your freedom of speech - but you're the one who wanted to be a social media "influencer". It's the same for everyone in your position, whether they be beta testers, youtubers, even all the way up to serious politicians and ambassadors- as a representative, you don't get to give your own opinions. You can have an opinion, and you can speak it privately to your friends and family who are unrelated to the issue. However, whenever you are speaking in an official capacity, either in videos, on forums, or in private communication with the developers, it is your ethical obligation to say what the people you represent are saying... or at the least, not act as a voice of opposition when the people you're supposed to represent try to raise their concerns directly.

If you don't... then I'd say that shows that you're really only in this for yourself. Like so many other so-called "influencers" out there, you're not here to bring attention to the game or to help anyone... you're just here to bring attention to yourself, and have us all worship in awe of the "professional, elite gamer" who has such an easy time at this game that nobody else can manage.

So what is it? Are you a real influencer who is going to actually try to positively influence things? Or are you just a "git gud scrub" person who wants us all to worship you?

Edited January 6, 2022 by Knight9910

[The_Partisan_Spy]

Knight, you are totally out of line.

From a constructive conversation, the last message made this an aggressive and finger pointing thread which usually leads to nothing.

I will stop answering here. With this tone and approach, the only answer I have is, play it on the easy mode.

[Knight9910]

Good idea. If you refuse to uphold your ethical obligation to the people you're supposed to represent, then the next best thing is to move out of the way so they can voice their concerns directly. Goodbye.

[AllOutCapt]

I love when people get like this. Not EVERY game is suited for EVERY person. No 1 single game will keep everyone happy.

 

If this is not the sort of game you enjoy playing, either give constructive criticism, or play a different game. In all my years of gaming I have never broken out in such a way as you have today. If I stopped enjoying a game, or never enjoyed playing it in the first place I would leave my constructive criticism and move on. Then you check any updates and see if what you had issues with was changed.

 

The way a lot of people who play this game play, are the like the survival aspect. Finding ways to survive, avoid those that you die. If you don't know what or how to do it then it will take longer. I myself love the way the game is at the moment, yes there are bugs, yes there is a few things that can be worked on. But it's the same with most games! Look at the state of COD: Warzone, the game has been out for years, earned millions and is still a dog-crap game with too many bugs/hackers.

[Johnny Blood]

From what i can tell, they weaken armor and food because they realized those items were too strong for the future updates to have a comparably stronger end game material. But they also include additional ways to get stronger with the updates. So while they are raising the bar, they are giving you the tools to reach that bar.  

[DnD20]

The Assistant Manager fight is absolutely to hard on anything other than MILD.

Many adds, check

Lasers, check

Electricity all over the room, check

Resistant to anything but the lamest of red ant clubs which feel SO bad to use, check

 

The fight needs lasers OR electricity but NOT both.

[Johnsmith70951]

Hi Knight,

 

You very correct and entitled to your opinion.  I've come across this same very behaviour and opinions from a small vocal minority myself. 

 

It's become clear the devs don't really listen to what fans an players want, this game used to gave so much promise.

 

The last few updates have just made the game unplayable, not even from a difficultly perspective either.

 

I'm very sure the game will be worse still at launch and continue in the direction of poor updates after, going against what actual players enjoy or desire.

[MarkofValor]

On 1/4/2022 at 3:57 PM, Knight9910 said:

Supposedly, once you've reached the end of the progression, then the game becomes easy. Making your way THERE is a massive slog. All you do is just die your way through the game, struggling against impossible challenges in an environment where intelligent strategy is punished rather than rewarded. Use a bow? The enemy runs away and gets instantly full healed. I could just exploit the bad pathing, spend 15 minutes running around a stem to get a bug stuck on it, then another 15 minutes when they manage to get off of it... until the developers fix that little glitch... or I could spend just as long save scumming and berserker charging - which is what the devs obviously WANT me to do - until I finally get lucky.

And every new update just makes it even harder, with heavy nerfs to the player and buffs to everything else. And when they're not making the game harder, they're just making it more tedious. Like, what was even the point of nerfing permafood? Food isn't even the focus of the game. The focus of the game is on exploration and building. At least that WAS the focus, before they made it so my basket full of permafood I had stored (as in, the ENTIRE basket) only refills about half my hunger bar, and now I'm back to having to spend most of each in game day hunting to not starve instead of actually playing the game.

Or for that matter, bandages now only giving me like 2% of my health bar back. Yeah, I love spending 6 real life hours on every "dungeon" because I have to stand around doing nothing for 30 minutes to heal after every fight.

And the condescending "tips" people give are all worthless. People telling me "oh, just use the Antlion Greatsword" because they think I have one of those when I'm struggling to kill a Ladybug with my +5 Mosquito Rapier which is another thing people told me I absolutely needed but it can't kill anything... or my full set of Ladybug Armor which USED to actually be good back when I got it, before one of the brilliant updates changed it so it has about the same defensive value as a wet paper bag. And I can't even fix it when it breaks, because they buffed ladybugs to a point where my best weapon doesn't even make their health bar move, but they one-shot me straight through full spider armor.

I feel like these people are just playing on Creative, and then go online to front about how the game is "way too easy" because they desperately want people to think of them as "professional, elite gamers." And the problem is that the developers can't tell whether people are playing legitimately or not, but these are the people who talk the loudest, so that's who the developers listen to. And they're trying to balance the game for people who think it's too easy because they're cheating, and the overwhelming majority of people who are struggling in the game (reminder: that Reddit post got 90% upvoted) all get left in the dust. And I can't even change it from Medium (which USED to be fine) to Mild difficulty to see if that might help without saying goodbye to ALL of my progress, because apparently being able to change difficulty in-game was just a glitch.

 

[MarkofValor]

Ok I goofed on submitting a quote to the OP.

So here is my actual post :P.

I'll start with the complaints that might be easier to answer.

• Bandages are not suppose to heal you all at once. They heal you over time. Just like how real bandages work. Food that you make in the cooker or the smoothie station will not only give you bonuses to things like stamina and attack, but also instantly heal you. There is a recipe that is not listed that makes generic smoothies. I'm not sure if it changed at all in the 1.0 release, but you can put in random ingredients to craft it. It straight up just heals you. It also can heal you even more if you use a certain item in the game that you have to find. (they also increased the health that recovers after eating food or using healing items.)
• 90% upvotes on a reddit post. Well that's 90% out of how many users on reddit? 229 upvotes and 52k users on that reddit. I'd say you barely scratched the surface on users on there. Plus that reddit isn't exactly used by a lot of grounded players. Discord is probably by far the most active, but even then that is not everyone. Social media is used on multiple platforms and not everyone uses the same ones. Which would give sparse results statistically speaking. A far clearer picture is to look at the achievements on steam for the game. Less than 10% of players on steam have acquired half of the achievements in the game. Which might suggest a more casual player base community. But it also might mean there isn't quite that many active players in an Early Access game that was not finished by the time you posted. These numbers might change after 1.0. I see a lot of streamers playing the game right now to get the first, shall we say, bite out of 1.0.
• I am not aware of a perma food issue in the game. Are you just mainly talking about food on the spit that could sit there and not decay? That was something that obviously got updated in the last couple patches or 1.0. It will spoil now. They gave us a way to preserve food in storage. So that might make it more in line with other survivor games like Ark that has fridges and preserving bins to compensate for unwanted spoilage.
• You'd have to talk with other users about end game stuff. I'm not entirely familiar with how the game is easier and is more of a slog when you have basically completed the game. I assume, just like all games it reaches a shelf life or plateaus at some point.
• The game is difficult. There is no better way to put it. You will die a lot. For a survival game this makes complete sense to me. I've played a wide number of survival games. Its the genre I play the most and I can say Grounded is more or less a 7 out of 10 on difficulty compared to other survival games.
• Lastly there is 4 game modes you can play on. Mild, Medium, Whoa!, and builder mode. Which I believe caters to the player base quite nicely. There are some like me that want a challenge, upgrades etc. And quite a bit of players that enjoy the game casually. As some commenter on another forum put it, "The cute bug game is quite deceiving when you realize how difficult it is." I won't lie, the game is tough. But there are so many ways to play the game, even custom settings to make your survival experience more enjoyable. If none of those settings work for a player, they can simply shelf the game and do something else. There is no shame from me on that. I've bought quite a few games I played for 2 hours and decided that was it for me.

P.S. I would point out that having a negative outlook on the community is more than half of the focus of your last paragraph and it undermines what could have been a more constructive post from you. Most of the less vocal players like myself do not get involved in banter on social media and being toxic or calling names. But that's to be expected from kids and teenagers who haven't figured out how to filter their thoughts in a constructive way without coming off hostile. Just take those as a grain of salt. They can't hurt you if you do not let them.

 

[mega]

Hey, let me focus on an aspect I think its overtuned or bad balanced:

 

The bugs healing very fast once you disengage with them for less than 5 seconds or if they dont find a valid pathing to you in the 3 seconds you are jumping from one point to another, or simply kiting. Legit kiting, not even trying to cheese them by getting them blocked with some obstacle.

This issue makes the ranged gameplay not very fun. While still doable (I played over 200h so far) it is not very fun to see how a bug at less than 5 meters from you is "confused" on whether to keep chasing you, or disengaging from combat cause the AI cant find a path for 1second while you kite. Resulting in their hp being healed.

I understand its an anti cheese mechanic, like bugs climbing, which makes ranged more fun as its not so easily abusable. But their HP regend should be a slow regen, not a "healing to full in 3s"

[Shawn Spencer]

Since you can change the difficulty settings as well as customize it however you want I'm not sure what the issue is here.