Game is grindy AF

[Jester]

Refined Ingots, Charcoal, Sulfur, Pure quartz,etc.
I spent more time in my base at this point instead of exploring. Because bases don't render so you have to AFK inside your Iron farms.
You also get like 300 iron per cycle maybe 600 per hour which is just drop in the bucket of the water when you're going to make the stronger spheres. Now you also have to make an AFK charcoal farm in the desert and probably more for the stronger materials.

Fun game but my God something has to be done for Mid game onwards. Allowing bases to render and have your AFK farm working might fix half the problems in this game.

[Wrothbog]

for people saying most survival games are grindy, most survival games also offer alternatives to grind. you don't just find higher tier schematics or unlike higher tier crafting skills.. through exploration you can also find better gear or stuff you haven't unlocked yet.

i'm yet to have this happen. maybe you guys have. typically survival crafters let you choose the path of building, exploring, combat or knowledge and build a character up around that.

but building is basic, exploring is basic, combat is slightly above basic, the knowledge tree is a pole, no branches.

by basic i mean simple, baseline, nothing much above minimum design.

right now it's forgiveable, it's less than a week since it entered early access. but the grind being asked for is not equal to the core gameplay loops for a survival crafter. it needs lucky finds in the open world that bypass the grind, it needs combat skills, it needs more melee weapon varieties, it needs way more construction options. right now i'm personally not investing more of my time into the game because it's asking for more than i want to give. it's returning an experience in which i keep falling asleep.

[KishiPhio]

Originally posted by magenight:

Buddy I can take a party of 5 cats, go to the church, and get over 200 ores in a single trip and I can do this over and over. If that is enough to keep you from playing the game then maybe survival as a genre is not for you. You CAN build an automated base but depending on your pals and setup that may just be a waste of time. Either way you need to realize a game built on grinding materials to build is gonna take a lot of grinding materials.

You know, I'll never get your guys' points. I'm already doing that and the game is cool. Do I want to go loot 300 metal every 10 minutes ? Not really. Do I want to change 5 of my pals every single 10 minutes to get some metal ? Not really either.

Loadouts would be cool for that so that I could at least change my pals for certain tasks faster.

But you know, it's called quality of life. When I start making plasma nuclear rockets, I expect to at least be able to collect a stone faster than with a pickaxe.
I got a whole team of pals with mining bonus, and cool I do 200 damage per hit on metal rocks, and yet it's still f*cking slow

You guys kinda got the wrong thing for the game. It's a survival game sure. But it's not just that. You guys can keep your pickaxes I'll take my metal drill powered by Foxsparks organs and Univolts chanting cult songs while charging a battery because I gave them a nice chicken dinner

[magenight]

Originally posted by KishiPhio:

Originally posted by magenight:

Buddy I can take a party of 5 cats, go to the church, and get over 200 ores in a single trip and I can do this over and over. If that is enough to keep you from playing the game then maybe survival as a genre is not for you. You CAN build an automated base but depending on your pals and setup that may just be a waste of time. Either way you need to realize a game built on grinding materials to build is gonna take a lot of grinding materials.

You know, I'll never get your guys' points. I'm already doing that and the game is cool. Do I want to go loot 300 metal every 10 minutes ? Not really. Do I want to change 5 of my pals every single 10 minutes to get some metal ? Not really either.

Loadouts would be cool for that so that I could at least change my pals for certain tasks faster.

But you know, it's called quality of life. When I start making plasma nuclear rockets, I expect to at least be able to collect a stone faster than with a pickaxe.
I got a whole team of pals with mining bonus, and cool I do 200 damage per hit on metal rocks, and yet it's still f*cking slow

You guys kinda got the wrong thing for the game. It's a survival game sure. But it's not just that. You guys can keep your pickaxes I'll take my metal drill powered by Foxsparks organs and Univolts chanting cult songs while charging a battery because I gave them a nice chicken dinner

The game literally does. It lets you assembly line everything except sulfur, coal, and ore. You can pick up ore while flying around or assembly lining a base specifically for ore if you want but trying to say its too grindy because you dont want to do it is a cop out. Its just whining.

[KishiPhio]

Originally posted by D. Flame:

Git gud. Just because you don’t like a mechanic doesn’t make it bad.


There is a teleport point right near a large mining spot. You can teleport straight between it and your base.

Every upgrade to carry weight raise your carry weight by 50 at least to start, and pals like Cativa can raise it too. Each Cat in your party raises carry weight by another 50 each. 5 levels and 5 Cats is another 500 carry weight right there.

The game has answers if you are smart enough to make use of them.

Understood, I will git gud, on my way to my 20th haul of metal, I can't hear you over the sounds of my Broncherries 100x5 weight
But damn, it's almost like getting the ore was the problem and not transporting it
I must be imagining things I'm not smart enough to know that

[D. Flame]

Originally posted by KishiPhio:

Originally posted by D. Flame:

Git gud. Just because you don’t like a mechanic doesn’t make it bad.


There is a teleport point right near a large mining spot. You can teleport straight between it and your base.

Every upgrade to carry weight raise your carry weight by 50 at least to start, and pals like Cativa can raise it too. Each Cat in your party raises carry weight by another 50 each. 5 levels and 5 Cats is another 500 carry weight right there.

The game has answers if you are smart enough to make use of them.

Understood, I will git gud, on my way to my 20th haul of metal, I can't hear you over the sounds of my Broncherries 100x5 weight
But damn, it's almost like getting the ore was the problem and not transporting it
I must be imagining things I'm not smart enough to know that

Build a camp with 10 pals. Get 5 that have the mining skill at a higher level. Get 3 have transporting at a higher level, and at least 1 with the mining foreman skill.

Build 10 beds, a chest and a feed box and two furnaces.

Then put in two kindling pals. And stock the feed box.


When you get back, you should have plenty of ore.


Split it in two and put each stack in a separate furnaces.


The pals will keep working even when you are not in camp, as long as you are signed in.


Then all you have to do is haul the ingots themselves. Or just relocate your main base to the ore.

[Danish Pastry]

More grind = more time spent in game. The grind IS the game, ask any survival game developer.

[drager55891]

It is a survival game, grinding is a core part. At least this game more passive method to get resources.

[KishiPhio]

Originally posted by D. Flame:

Build a camp with 10 pals. Get 5 that have the mining skill at a higher level. Get 3 have transporting at a higher level, and at least 1 with the mining foreman skill.

Build 10 beds, a chest and a feed box and two furnaces.

Then put in two kindling pals. And stock the feed box.


When you get back, you should have plenty of ore.


Split it in two and put each stack in a separate furnaces.


The pals will keep working even when you are not in camp, as long as you are signed in.


Then all you have to do is haul the ingots themselves. Or just relocate your main base to the ore.

I'm not stupid that's exactly what I do but my whining is not without cause.
Bases barely work if you're too far away and everytime I come back, there's barely any ore that's been mined. Cool I got 14 ore that's not even 10 ingot and a f*cking tera sphere costs 5
That's coming from gamepass which is known to have one or two patch late so maybe on steam bases are better ? Idk. I've bought the game on steam anyway so I'll try that out someday.

[D. Flame]

I was half way across the map and came back to 2300 berries and 4000+ lumber. I can get enough ore to make 30 ingots in one run on my own.

If you set up a base. your pals should keep working on their own. Are you sure you have it setup as a base (i.e. it is inside the blue box)? You can only have one base until your main base is like level 10.

[Bored_German]

Originally posted by magenight:

Originally posted by Sepulcher:

Most survival games you can circumvent the grindy parts, yes you can still grind but not this much. Maybe this game is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in that regard along with ark.

Such as? What survival games allow you to completely bypass grinding materials?

don't you know the survival game called cheat engine? Or... was that a shooter?

[Jester]

Originally posted by magenight:

Originally posted by Sepulcher:

Yeah the grind mentality is ingrained in their heads at this point.
Other games for sure have grind aspect to them but they do a better job at hiding it or make that task a fun experience. Here you just AFK for hours, Maybe do it yourself holding left click on an ore. It is not a fun task at all.
Doesn't help that half the time your ♥♥♥♥♥♥ pals get stuck trying to pick a berry. I could ignore the grind if bases actually work in this game. You can't leave it far away.

Buddy I can take a party of 5 cats, go to the church, and get over 200 ores in a single trip and I can do this over and over. If that is enough to keep you from playing the game then maybe survival as a genre is not for you. You CAN build an automated base but depending on your pals and setup that may just be a waste of time. Either way you need to realize a game built on grinding materials to build is gonna take a lot of grinding materials.

Dude really tried pretending 200 ores is a lot mid to late game. face palm.
You also have to do with Charcoal,Sulfur,Crystals,etc.

[magenight]

Originally posted by Sepulcher:

Originally posted by magenight:

Buddy I can take a party of 5 cats, go to the church, and get over 200 ores in a single trip and I can do this over and over. If that is enough to keep you from playing the game then maybe survival as a genre is not for you. You CAN build an automated base but depending on your pals and setup that may just be a waste of time. Either way you need to realize a game built on grinding materials to build is gonna take a lot of grinding materials.

Dude really tried pretending 200 ores is a lot mid to late game. face palm.

Its a lot for 5 minutes of work total. Not my fault if you cant understand how to properly use your time or set up a base.

[NutBusterYoda]

I agree the base level of things needs to be toned down a bit. The grind should still be there but it shouldn't be tedious. Ore farming has to be the most annoying thing ever considering how scuffed weight/weight capacity is. You can have 400+ available capacity and a single ore rock will cause you be go over. If they fix some of these smaller aspects ill give the game a 11/10.

[Jester]

Originally posted by magenight:

Originally posted by Sepulcher:

Dude really tried pretending 200 ores is a lot mid to late game. face palm.

Its a lot for 5 minutes of work total.

Which escalates further you are in the game.
200 ores would barely cover 10 epic spheres. When it fails which happens a lot you run out of spheres to do it all over again. There's also the matter of farming sulfur/Coals/Crystals,Cement, Fiber,etc.
Yes it's a lot of work so you could throw 10 spheres WHICH can fail and will happen then you'll do it all over again.

[awanderingswordsman]

There seems to be some kind of issue with bases not doing anything when you aren't there. This is in singleplayer. If I warp from the church ore base to my starting area base. Do breeding for literally 30 in game days, then go back, and all the nodes are spawned, no one is trapped, no one is hungry, no one is injured or upset, but they haven't mined a thing and all spring into action after I load in.

However, if I warp to the mining base and then walk back to my main base, it seems to stay loaded and I can eventually warp back to find 500+ ore waiting for me.

I think when you warp, it unloads chunks you aren't in. That's my best guess anyway.

I do sort of agree with OP though. 500 ore just isn't very much when I need to get like 100+ ultra spheres to go exploring. I can burn through that capturing stuff in like 20 minutes and then need to idle at base or spend more than 20 minutes mining since I also need coal and sulfer and palladium. I also have to place all the stuff I collected in chests, set crafting recipes to start, repair my gear, possibly craft more ammo, then I can go out again for 20 minutes.

I think what I need is a faster way to manually mine stuff and I've heard the turtles do it but haven't encountered them yet (captured 90 species of pals, just haven't been to it's area I guess). Then I can just fly around with lunarises in my party and manually go mining for like an hour and get 5k ore or something.