Not worth it

[AzraelBenjaminJahwehZebaot]

Not worth it.

There are too many games in these times that are hard for many people on earth that are ruining you recreational time. This game does aswell.

The average gamer will have this experience:

The game has beauty of graphics, but if you look past the beauty of graphics, you see a game in which nothing works right as it should in a survival game that makes you regenerate your energy in your time off of work. Most of the time you will close this game with more frustration than when you started it.

The combat is nothing new, its basic blocking and hitting per mouse click and basic shooting. Enemies can get stuck, hit you through walls, glitch into different objects and the entire map is overloaded with an unrealistic amount of them. On some parts of the map it's so bad that it contributes to the lag of the game.

Most enemies can be juked, even hard enemies so that you dont have to kill them at all (Only a few at the beginning to get some resources). This makes entire areas feel pointless, as enemies don't give you exp for kills. If you still kill and loot them you will overflow with resources at some point and have to either manually delete items from your inventory or they will never despawn. (But the enemies still aggro you and make you run in evasive patterns that lead you either into the next enemy, let you get stuck in grass objects or lose your orientation, especially at night time if you don't have a torch (which degrades quickly and doesn't let you fight with a shield at the same time. The only reasonable alternative to the torch is a mid game helmet that has a torch, but this helmet has low durability and you can't use it in some parts of the map becouse you need different items to survive.))

In order to skip time to get to daylight again, you can only sleep for 8 ingame hours which doesn't fix the problem becouse in most cases you will still have 3 ingame hours in darkness to pass, and most of the time you aren't in your base to sleep.

The inventory is too small for the big amount of special items you need for different specific areas, which makes you run back and forth unnesseceraly through a map that lets you get stuck between grass, aggroing different types of enemies while you walk, some faster than you and some even flying, some are faster than you and can onehit you in early game. This type of enemy can be found all over the middle of the map, which is the area you cross the most. If you choose to kill all of them you will find yourself killing the same enemies spawning in the same positions over and over again, and your gear will lose durability in every fight, which you need to repair after that aswell (Most likely going back to base to get the specific resources for that type of armor or weapon that you have, becouse the inventory is too small to hold it all.)

If you happen to die, you drop all of your items, except the items you had equipped at that time, and the equipped items lose a junk of durability. You can respawn either at the initial spawn or in your base, which means running back to your items again. If for whatever reason you die again a couple of times, your equipped items will break, and will make a return to your body a nightmare, especially if it is in a hard-to-get-to position underwater, in a group of enemies, or in a contaminated area of the map.

At the moment the game is unplayable for many people, as ants are overloading their ant hill with an excessive amount of food items, that are all physic objects and are piled up to no end. It makes the entire map lag. The devs are aware of that problem and didn't fix it yet. The only way to get around it is to invade heavily guarded ant hills senselessly over and over again just to go to their lagging food pile and to pick every single food item up individually to then delete it from your inventory in small stacks.

Killing of certain types of enemies is tiring, since their pathfinding and isolating single ones of them out of a group doesn't work well. Especially bees do pretty much whatever they want, have a much higher movement speed than you and fly tumbling in the air in different directions. The only way to kill them if you aren't going to their bee hive, which is a long way to go there from different parts of the map (And you most likely have to face an annoying amount of mosquitos to get there, that at some point dont even contribute anymore to any type of game progress, and just eat away from the durability of your weapons or makes you walk around looking for patterns to get through them to pass around) is to shoot them with a bow. Usually you miss the bees as they fly around in unpredictable patterns and are far away, making you lose arrows, but more importantly, letting these arrows go somewhere on the map where you don't find them anymore, and they don't despawn anymore and act as a physics object, that adds to the lag of the game.

Some resources such as berry leather is needed in raw amounts but makes you walk long distances to farm and pile up, and makes you need to wait long times in between to get more, so they respawn in the hedge again.

Overall not worth 40 dollars. It's tiring and doesn't add recreational value to your free time as soon as you find out how buggy and inconvenient some features are.

The collective experience gives you a huge disappointment and sadness in an average of every half an hour real life time, and doesn't outweight the fun you get out of situations that work, which means you pay 40 dollars to get disappointed.

The execution of the game plans in development gets a 0/10 from me.

[MRV1N]

Originally posted by AzraelBenjaminJahwehZebaot:

Not worth it.

There are too many games in these times that are hard for many people on earth that are ruining you recreational time. This game does aswell.

The average gamer will have this experience:

The game has beauty of graphics, but if you look past the beauty of graphics, you see a game in which nothing works right as it should in a survival game that makes you regenerate your energy in your time off of work. Most of the time you will close this game with more frustration than when you started it.

The combat is nothing new, its basic blocking and hitting per mouse click and basic shooting. Enemies can get stuck, hit you through walls, glitch into different objects and the entire map is overloaded with an unrealistic amount of them. On some parts of the map it's so bad that it contributes to the lag of the game.

Most enemies can be juked, even hard enemies so that you dont have to kill them at all (Only a few at the beginning to get some resources). This makes entire areas feel pointless, as enemies don't give you exp for kills. If you still kill and loot them you will overflow with resources at some point and have to either manually delete items from your inventory or they will never despawn. (But the enemies still aggro you and make you run in evasive patterns that lead you either into the next enemy, let you get stuck in grass objects or lose your orientation, especially at night time if you don't have a torch (which degrades quickly and doesn't let you fight with a shield at the same time. The only reasonable alternative to the torch is a mid game helmet that has a torch, but this helmet has low durability and you can't use it in some parts of the map becouse you need different items to survive.))

In order to skip time to get to daylight again, you can only sleep for 8 ingame hours which doesn't fix the problem becouse in most cases you will still have 3 ingame hours in darkness to pass, and most of the time you aren't in your base to sleep.

The inventory is too small for the big amount of special items you need for different specific areas, which makes you run back and forth unnesseceraly through a map that lets you get stuck between grass, aggroing different types of enemies while you walk, some faster than you and some even flying, some are faster than you and can onehit you in early game. This type of enemy can be found all over the middle of the map, which is the area you cross the most. If you choose to kill all of them you will find yourself killing the same enemies spawning in the same positions over and over again, and your gear will lose durability in every fight, which you need to repair after that aswell (Most likely going back to base to get the specific resources for that type of armor or weapon that you have, becouse the inventory is too small to hold it all.)

If you happen to die, you drop all of your items, except the items you had equipped at that time, and the equipped items lose a junk of durability. You can respawn either at the initial spawn or in your base, which means running back to your items again. If for whatever reason you die again a couple of times, your equipped items will break, and will make a return to your body a nightmare, especially if it is in a hard-to-get-to position underwater, in a group of enemies, or in a contaminated area of the map.

At the moment the game is unplayable for many people, as ants are overloading their ant hill with an excessive amount of food items, that are all physic objects and are piled up to no end. It makes the entire map lag. The devs are aware of that problem and didn't fix it yet. The only way to get around it is to invade heavily guarded ant hills senselessly over and over again just to go to their lagging food pile and to pick every single food item up individually to then delete it from your inventory in small stacks.

Killing of certain types of enemies is tiring, since their pathfinding and isolating single ones of them out of a group doesn't work well. Especially bees do pretty much whatever they want, have a much higher movement speed than you and fly tumbling in the air in different directions. The only way to kill them if you aren't going to their bee hive, which is a long way to go there from different parts of the map (And you most likely have to face an annoying amount of mosquitos to get there, that at some point dont even contribute anymore to any type of game progress, and just eat away from the durability of your weapons or makes you walk around looking for patterns to get through them to pass around) is to shoot them with a bow. Usually you miss the bees as they fly around in unpredictable patterns and are far away, making you lose arrows, but more importantly, letting these arrows go somewhere on the map where you don't find them anymore, and they don't despawn anymore and act as a physics object, that adds to the lag of the game.

Some resources such as berry leather is needed in raw amounts but makes you walk long distances to farm and pile up, and makes you need to wait long times in between to get more, so they respawn in the hedge again.

Overall not worth 40 dollars. It's tiring and doesn't add recreational value to your free time as soon as you find out how buggy and inconvenient some features are.

The collective experience gives you a huge disappointment and sadness in an average of every half an hour real life time, and doesn't outweight the fun you get out of situations that work, which means you pay 40 dollars to get disappointed.

The execution of the game plans in development gets a 0/10 from me.

cloooooown,u have no clue this game is one of the best survival games out there.

[Subsonic]

The only point I agree with is the black ant/food issue, as that's obviously a game issue that will get fixed soon. Otherwise, I think the rest of the complaints are just personal preference issues and for a survival game, those are fairly common items. It's a great game, it IS worth the 40 bucks (once the ant/food issue is fixed, definitely). So it doesn't sound like the game is for you but a 0/10? That's just spite and pettiness, the game is clearly not a zero. That's absurd.

[Dr. Rockso]

Sounds like you just don't like survival games in general.

[Kamakura]

"This survival game is too much like a survival game, and because it's like a survival game, I don't like it."

It's totally fine to just not like these types of games at all, you don't need act like it's the worst game ever lol

[Lacrimosa]

Antfood bug should be fixed ASAP.
Other than that... Well, it's just not your type of game. But it's definitely very good game in its genre.

Plus, almost all of the issues you have with the game can be fixed by playing it with custom settings. You can even turn this game into building simulator without any interruptions from enemies, if you want to.

[RequiemsRose]

I can see both sides of it honestly. I do enjoy the game, and am actually doing quite well at it overall (even hunting the uber nopes of the upper yard currently in my main game), but I also hesitate to say it's worth $40. Many of the games I would compare this one to (like my tendency to refer to this as "Honey I Shrunk the Kids Valhiem") fall into the range of $15-30 dollars, and many of them are at least currently more stable, though that may just be Grounded going through it's post-release roadbumps like games do. Then again there are people out there who will wait for a sale on the sheer principle of saving money either way, and an eventual sale would put this game in roughly the same price range as the games I would consider to be it's peers.

I have a few complaints of my own, but most are relatively minor or come down to personal preference. The only ones I can currently think of that are pretty objective are the actual current bugs. The most apparent seem to be that ant stockpiling can destroy your ability to play your game, and the natural explorer mutation (and the aphid slippers) recent change turned it from a generally helpful but minor buff into sometimes a great buff and sometimes a debuff. Others that have personally irritated me and still seem to be objective are how some archery related mutations/effects dont trigger correctly or at all (pollen seems to trigger from the player rather than the arrow, and sharpshooter's "rooted" effect never seems to trigger at all). All that said though, it doesn't seem support has stopped just because the game reached release so I also imagine that at least most of these issues will also be addressed in the future.

At the end of the day, if the game is something you enjoy and will spend several hours in then you probably will get your money's worth despite it being on the higher end of the price range for comparable games. If you don't enjoy the game though, then no price is going to be worth it to you, and the only one who can truly know if you enjoy it or not is you. That's part of why Steam has a refund policy though (though I sometimes wish it let you play more than 2 hours before a refund on games that are overall much longer. I get it that games like Portal could be finished and returned in that return window, but other games barely get past the tutorial by 2 hours in...all that's mildly unrelated frustrations though).

[Zat]

Originally posted by AzraelBenjaminJahwehZebaot:

Not worth it.

There are too many games in these times that are hard for many people on earth that are ruining you recreational time. This game does aswell.

Brace yourself, AzraelBJZ, for a wave of dismissal and outright insults. Like every game this has the usual fans and shills but I for one hear your frustration. The only actual tactic is load-scumming and EVERYONE is doing it. Don't bother doing corpse runs, just save before battles or when you're in a good spot and then prepare to reload often.

I'm very late game on my most recent play through on "Medium", and the difficulty is just all over the place. Early game was ok, mid game wall a little brutal, going into late seemed like i was OP all geared out, but now late game bosses and widow spider are purely ludicrous requiring high degree of meta, perfect play and tons of grinding.

It's more of a job than a game. You can't just "play" it - assume you will die frequently in every play session and rely on saving and load-scumming. Read the meta, watch vids, use guides, but load scum anyway, there's no nice way. The game is sadistic and will not honor your time, but rewards you for what in essence is cheating. YMMV

[Carambar]

I believe that the game is mainly balanced around multiplayer; thus solo players heavily feel the grind.

Lack of backpack space; lack of multiple sources of threat generation that can very much save your butt assuming you are low health and the enemy decides to go for a friend instead.
Have to do everything by oneself; gather this for food, gather that for base building. Make an errend for X enemy part for repairs / upgrades and so on and on. Everything becomes much more accessible in multiplayer, except for the limited upgrades which is another topic.

Imo more backpack space would alleviate so much of the difficulty as a solo player to keep up with the exponential grind that is demanded of us in the later stages of the game. 1/3 of backpack is occupied by tools, and thats with the bare minimum. All those cool weapons and I cannot use, cos each inventory space is so precious.

My tools are basically also my weapons, bare the extra spear that I carry cos stabbing becomes much more useful late game...

Imagine the Mint Mallet being usable for busting as it used to; Pinch wacker functioning as an axe as it used to; etc etc. (A late game Burgl chip that would be an upgrade of those weapons; kind of like the Canteen+. Or one of the ressources to craft the Mint Mallet requiring a T3 hammer to be gathered beforehand; many possibilities... Instead they just nerf with no compensation.)

Just my take on this.

[pcdeltalink]

Originally posted by Carambar:

I believe that the game is mainly balanced around multiplayer; thus solo players heavily feel the grind.

In some ways I would argue multiplayer grind could be worse. Need to collect and divide up more drops and upgrade mats for multiple copies of weapons and armors, not to mention getting enough materials to upgrade them. Because enemies have more health and damage in multiplayer you have to get ahold of more repair materials as well since you'll be swinging your weapons more to kill the same creature. Also, in solo if you die you can just reload a previous save, even one from 5 seconds before that fight started. Not so much in multiplayer. Can also use that for trickier platforming sections, saving and reloading if you fall.

Originally posted by Carambar:

Imo more backpack space would alleviate so much of the difficulty as a solo player to keep up with the exponential grind that is demanded of us in the later stages of the game. 1/3 of backpack is occupied by tools, and thats with the bare minimum. All those cool weapons and I cannot use, cos each inventory space is so precious.

It used to be worse, back before molar upgrades for item stack sizes and back when your equipped items still took space in your backpack. Would I like a backpack upgrade of some kind? Sure, but the game is manageable without it just fine.

Originally posted by Carambar:

Imagine the Mint Mallet being usable for busting as it used to; Pinch wacker functioning as an axe as it used to; etc etc.

Nah, if that was the case then the tier 3 axe and hammer may as well not exist. Pinch Whacker was obviously going to get nerfed from the start as it was super easy to acquire early and completely broke tool progression for axes. And Mint Mace was changed so long ago to not be a hammer it's hardly relevant nowadays (think someone in a different thread mentioned that ability ended with the pond update).

[Carambar]

Yup inventory becomes more manageable with molar upgrades, but still dsnt solve the issue that general equipement takes way too much of this limited space.

Pinch wacker being obtainable early is one thing, my suggestions still stand to make those weapons usable as tools as they used to for tthe later parts of the game, without breaking the early game. Nerfing is obviously the straight low effort decision to make, but it drives the game away from having different options, and what makes a game fun? Having options. Currently, there arent that many if any at all. That black ox hammer will remain in ur backpack wether you like it or not.

Why would I carry a mint mallet when my fresh ox hammer does the same job if slightly worse but allows me to use a shield or a torch (that I have to carry anyway), but most importantly allows me to bust the ressources I need to gather that the mallet and no other tool or weapon can bust? Nah I can only just comply and play the way the devs want me to play; which may be fun or not for some.

[pcdeltalink]

Originally posted by Carambar:

Why would I carry a mint mallet when my fresh ox hammer does the same job if slightly worse but allows me to use a shield or a torch (that I have to carry anyway), but most importantly allows me to bust the ressources I need to gather that the mallet and no other tool or weapon can bust?

Few reasons. First, Mint Mace is pure fresh damage, like the Salt Morning Star is for salty, which means it only can upgrade into the mighty path which means it will end up with higher damage and fresh vs any other weapon. Adding fresh onto other weapons lowers the damage you can reach with those upgrades compared to tools like Mint Mace, Spicy Coaltana, and Salt Morningstar.

Second, while their combo update awhile back did give hammers a proper combo their combo speed still absolutely sucks for a 1h weapon. Compare the speed of hammer combo vs pretty much any other 1h weapon. It's awful. I could see someone making the Termite Axe upgraded and using it as an actual weapon, definitely not hammer though.

Third, shield and torch are very, very situational. There are very few attacks you actually need a shield to block. Skill in perfect blocking will get you through almost every enemy just fine. Torch isn't needed in most areas during combat at least as enemies glowing red eyes give away their position just fine. Combined with knowledge of their attacks even seeing just that and the shape of their body is enough to block stuff.

[RequiemsRose]

Originally posted by pcdeltalink:

-snip-
...I could see someone making the Termite Axe upgraded and using it as an actual weapon, definitely not hammer though.

Third, shield and torch are very, very situational. There are very few attacks you actually need a shield to block. Skill in perfect blocking will get you through almost every enemy just fine. Torch isn't needed in most areas during combat at least as enemies glowing red eyes give away their position just fine. Combined with knowledge of their attacks even seeing just that and the shape of their body is enough to block stuff.

Can confirm, termite axe is my default melee weapon currently. It's not my only one, but it is the one I use most often or when unsure/unable to check weaknesses. Part of why it's my default is the axe is just generally what i've had out for like 2/3 of the game so it's what i've gotten most used to in it's various tiers, including it's swing speed compared to enemy attack times (which usually averages out to a 3 hit combo, block, 3 hit combo, block, etc; almost mindless even if not always the most effective). Perfect parry indeed opens up avenues that would otherwise probably be stupid to try. I also tend to use the chopper mutation, buuuut, when i do manage to stun something with a bunch of health that is weak to busting i often use that stun to take a few swings with the hammer instead. I put fresh damage on the axe, so it's certainly not always the most effective weapon for everything but it does melt a good bit of the tier 2-3 stuff im currently farming/dealing with and even when it doesn't I am usually not in too much danger unless i get swarmed thanks to the blocking (especially since im still using ladybug armor, currently upgraded into sleek so, increased block threshold, chance of healing on block, better healing overall, combined with parry master so stamina on perfect block as well). I don't really use a shield, though it would help with that swarming issue a bit I suppose. Most of the times I would use it, like in anthills, is when i want my torch instead though.

[Gargoyle Girl]

Let me try to address your many problems with the game, but first let me say this: does this game really feel *that* hard to you? Have you never encountered glitches in games before similar to this one? I feel like you're being just a bit too harsh.

The combat is simple, but also has timing involved if you want to score perfect parries, which bounce the enemy back and let you get in more hits, and which also breaks any combos they might be starting. Of course you can dodge enemies. This is realistic in that they can't see behind them, and sometimes you *want* to sneak past them. It sounds like you ran into an ant nest and got swarmed, and yes, you have to think about ants to play this. They work in teams and there's always a lot of them in their nests. You can't just go in and 1 v 1 them all to get inside, and soldier ants will attack you if they think you're a threat.

Darkness is meant to be scary and tough in this game and EVERY game like it (ARK survival will literally kill you just for being out in the dark if you're not geared just so). I'll spoil you a bit in that as you progress you can get better and better torches, which last longer. Yes, you can either have a shield or a torch and a weapon, and using 2 handed things like bows don't let you use torches at all. What did you expect? Even a buckler that you wear on your arm has a strap you need to grip in one hand to keep it from getting twisted to a bad angle and being useless, and you're fighting giant bugs throwing their whole body at you; you're gonna want a tight grip on that shield strap.

There is a custom setting to the game. You can turn things like Stamina off (which I have, letting me swing as much as I want and run as much as I want without getting tired), turn off Thirst or Hunger, turn off friendly fire, and a lot of other small changes that alter how tough the game is without completely making it a cakewalk. You can also modify if you drop all your stuff or not, so if you die, it just stays with you.

I agree that some items need their own specific slots though, and made a post suggesting this: it would make for more inventory space, and when you unequip things, they just go whereever in your pack, which drives me nuts. They recently doubled the durability of everything, so unless you're going psycho with trying to kill things and not even trying to defend or be cautious, you shouldn't need repairs after every fight, or even every few fights.

The issue with the food in ant nests is more complex than just 'ants endlessly collecting food'. I've invaded all the nests in my game, and there's still lag spikes; I've also noticed that the rotten food at the garbage pile is respawning WAY too fast; it seems to be reappearing almost as soon as you go a certain distance from it. Both of these issues I'm sure will be fixed. You talk like you've never played a game before and as soon as any problem has been found in your games they've been fixed instantly. Give them some time.

Your issue with flying enemies... sounds like a you thing, no offense. I have no trouble hitting them with the bow or crossbow, and if you're patient, you can target them at long range and shoot them, they come close, then try to return, never even coming close. Rinse and repeat until dead. It's easier with the crossbow, but can be done. Practice your aim, peep enemies and learn their weak spots, and the bow becomes very useful.

Yes, they make you work for the gear you want. This is literally every survival game in existence. This complaint feels pointless and something you just threw in because you're not happy. I'm sorry you feel upset, but this is not a reason to rag on this game, or ALL survival games are guilty of it, and you need to play a different genre.

All in all, it just sounds like you had a bad turn with the game, and got pissed enough to embarrass yourself by making this 'survival games are survival games and I don't like it!' post. I'd take some time to calm down next time before doing it again, and seriously consider looking into different types of games to play; this doesn't feel like your type.

[Carambar]

Originally posted by pcdeltalink:

Originally posted by Carambar:

Why would I carry a mint mallet when my fresh ox hammer does the same job if slightly worse but allows me to use a shield or a torch (that I have to carry anyway), but most importantly allows me to bust the ressources I need to gather that the mallet and no other tool or weapon can bust?

Few reasons. First, Mint Mace is pure fresh damage, like the Salt Morning Star is for salty, which means it only can upgrade into the mighty path which means it will end up with higher damage and fresh vs any other weapon. Adding fresh onto other weapons lowers the damage you can reach with those upgrades compared to tools like Mint Mace, Spicy Coaltana, and Salt Morningstar.

Second, while their combo update awhile back did give hammers a proper combo their combo speed still absolutely sucks for a 1h weapon. Compare the speed of hammer combo vs pretty much any other 1h weapon. It's awful. I could see someone making the Termite Axe upgraded and using it as an actual weapon, definitely not hammer though.

Third, shield and torch are very, very situational. There are very few attacks you actually need a shield to block. Skill in perfect blocking will get you through almost every enemy just fine. Torch isn't needed in most areas during combat at least as enemies glowing red eyes give away their position just fine. Combined with knowledge of their attacks even seeing just that and the shape of their body is enough to block stuff.

I respectfully disagree.

1) and 2) The Mint mallet does more dmg upfront than the Ox Hammer, but that's very arguable in terms of DPS considering the insane stamina usage of 2H weapons compared to 1H. Yes the attack speed of the Ox hammer is trash, but so is that of the Mint Mallet and it's worse even. Can't carry shield / torch either.

You trade comfort in killing bugs faster with inventory slots. Id rather take a few seconds longer to kill something rather than wearing two weapons of the same type then be rewarded with more fruitful avdentures, rather than back tracking to basecamp constantly to empty my pockets.
Plus, I have a shield to make those encounters very safe to deal with, compared to a 2H which tends more to medium/high reward for high risk.

Bcs we only speak of one situation, but we can take the Spicy Termine Axe Vs Spicy Coaltana discussion in this direction as well, and so forth. Yes the Coaltana takes down a wolf spider is 6 hits while the Spicy Axe will take 8, but the axe attacks faster...

My question is then: Why pick two weapons that fill the same role when only one of them fulfills the important factor of ressource gathering, but in trade of arguably slightly less power? (Burst dmg Vs DPS)

3) Yeah, Ive done a few cave runs without a torch and such because sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, and it was not an enjoyable experience. Having to run by the walls to scan for upgrade materials in the dark etc etc; enough said.

Nobody is perfect blocking at a 100% rate, even more so when there is a swarm of enemies. It's easy to get overwhelmed with a 2H weapon thus leaving you open, defensless and without stamina to run away. While this rarely happens with a 1H and shields.

In the end, you trade inventory slots, the overall comfort and security of a torch and shield, and more... for *arguably* more damage and a cool looking weapon. =/

A side note that is more me telling my experience: I only carry a fresh Rusty spear as a backup to the 4 main tools that are Termine Axe, Ox Hammer, Shovel and Dagger. And it makes quick work of anything that is resistant to the above. No reason at all to bring anything else other than the cool and fun factor, which is highly personal.
Sadly for me, inventory feels too limited to make the decision of having fun and experiment with different weapons, as I prefer the joy of having a somewhat empty inventory when I go off adventuring.

[TamanduaGirl]

You can play custom game settings to have a more enjoyable game, like you can choose to not drop your backpack on death. You might not get achievements with a custom game BUT if you're just playing for fun that shouldn't matter much.