Is the game balanced for single player?

[pete8719]

As in the title. Whenever I see "co-op" in a survival game I cringe, because that usually means single player is unbearably grindy and unbalanced- and I hate co-op. For instance, Conan almost can't be played in single player, because all the bosses are hit-sponges.

So, whats the situation here?

[SwiftFart]

Not gonna lie, it is a bit grindy; and unlike with conan there are no settings to mess with to increase the harvesting amount. But as a single player, for me anyway, it's not rage inducing. I do sigh when I see I need something across the map but I haven't yet felt like quitting because of it. I have raged quit because of hard bosses but that's it.
And even the hard bosses, yeah it'd be easier to beat them with others of course, but they're not invincible and can be taken down solo with the proper gear (weapons+armor+ meds and buff drinks, and some patience).

It's ultimately up to you to decide if the game itself is worth pushing through those things but I like to think it is, I have a lot of fun in Grounded and hope you still can too

[Ammikaameri]

It seems it is more balanced for singleplayer than MP to be honest. I've only played SP for over 50 hours. There is absolutely no grinding unless you like to build. Well for some end game items you may need to grind a bit if you're unlucky, but none of those are necessary to complete the game.

[ulzgoroth]

I'm not really seeing grind - every recipe I've seen takes pretty small numbers of ingredients. I guess churning huge amounts of renewable-recipe upgrade materials or high level repair materials might be grindy, but quantity needed for that would scale with players so it'd be equally grindy either way.

Combat, on the other hand, seems like an obvious huge advantage for coop players. I haven't played coop, mind, but I can't imagine having three allies wouldn't go a long way to mitigate the problem of, say, a wolf spider. There are a few item mechanics that clearly are for coop, like the 'healbasa' healing grenade, a couple armor sets that increase your threat rating and at least one that lowers it.

I haven't played far enough to say anything bad about the single-player combat balance for the most part. There's lots of stuff that's hard or just out of my league, but that's a feature rather than a fault at this point. (Though I could really use a wolf spider kill.)

[xXBulletJusticeXx]

I've been playing single player for 25+ hours on PC and it's been relatively straight forward and pretty easy. It DOES take patience, since it is very easy to die, but getting your stuff back is simple enough.

There is some grind for components, but the drop rates are consistent enough as long as you can reliably kill things. Cheesing creatures or using Agro mechanics to your advantage is required if you are bad at perfect blocking consistently.

[RequiemsRose]

A little of both I'd say. Some things do seem geared more towards solo players, but other things seem geared towards multiplayer. Though the things that immediately come to mind as being "geared towards multiplayer" are mostly that they are significantly easier in multiplayer than they are in solo, like bosses came to my mind but that could simply be by fortune of being able to divide aggro in MP. Meanwhile the upgrade materials for your armor and weapons is rather limited at first, though you can unlock renewable recipes later on. In solo, this isn't really an issue because all of them are entirely yours, so it isnt until much later game when you have more options but less materials that you actually have to worry about what exactly you want to spend your precious upgrade materials on. In multiplayer though, the exact same number and placement of these materials exists, but is now divided between multiple players so each one has to be a bit more conservative about what they choose to upgrade and how.

So far it has been difficult to play solo, but the nature of the game is kind of intended to be that way. Not in the sense that it is super grindy or unfair though. It is just one of those games that punishes your mistakes harshly if you dont learn from them quickly (like maybe dont pick a fight with a wolf spider the moment you get acorn armor because you suddenly think you're tough, just an example, not a personal anecdote at all...anywho....). The game does reward taking your time, being thorough, and backtracking quite often though so don't rush it. There's a lot of situations you can take advantage of with just a little patience, observation, and wit and there is rarely only one way to accomplish a task in this game (building is a fun bypass for a lot of stuff). Also worth mentioning that the block mechanic is incredibly useful, and definitely worth practicing. It can save your tiny bacon in sooooo many situations.

[Serpiko82]

I've been playing solo for over 70 hours so far (on mild, I want to relax) and the only times the grind makes me grumble is when I'm building a new base and I have to do all the gathering and carrying of construction materials myself (grass planks, weed stems and such). Even a small sized base requires an awful lot of them, unless you're happy with basically a campfire in the open.

Combat... I can't tell about higher difficulties, but on easiest settings you're definitely fine solo, as long as you DON'T rush the story and take your time to gear yourself up as much as you can before stepping up your game and taking on heavier foes.

Of course you'll be the only focus of hostile attention, this somewhat limits your options since in this case a tank build is DEFINITELY recommended. Unless you get REALLY good and can perfect parry most or all attacks, even when swarmed.

[Random]

300 hour on here.
About 250h of that solo.
As someone who has played every game in this genere...

No, I would not classify this game as grindy.
By the time you reach tier 2 stuff, you'll already have an inventory of items at the ready.
Then you only go out for things you're short on, or quests that need to get done... killing along the way, will always keeps you topped up.

Learning the bug fights, and what gear you can use with them or how - is for you to find out.

I will take a chest along with me, if I'm going out for extended periods, or for massive resource gathering. Just be careful what you put in there(if it's not in a safe spot).
If you aggro something rough, odds are it will kill you and then target the chest(one of those hard lessons).

It also helps to have a main base for crafting or safe storage, and several smaller ones(in areas you like to stay active in).

Save, save, save files.
Save before you do something for the first time.
Save before you do something stupid.
Save before getting into large fights.
It's much easier to altF4/reload after death, then worry about items needed to repair your gear from silly mistakes. Especially if you're like me and enjoy learning by doing, vs. ever looking anything up.

Good luck with your endeavors.

[Catpuppy]

Single player feels perfectly balanced imo; early game is always a little bit tough whether it's medium or whoa mode, but it smooths out once you get through the early struggle to get gear. It's not too easy either way though. Single player also has the advantage of not having to share upgrade materials, which means you'll be able to cap out upgrades on your gear much earlier, which may actually make it a little bit easier than multi.

SP also has the benefit of being able to save/load whenever, so you could really go through the game without ever having to respawn and take durability damage, whereas in multiplayer it's much more of an ask to get your friends to restart the server to load a save.

[pete8719]

Thanks for the answers guys, thats what I was looking for. I don't mind grind, per se, as long as its not Conan-level retarded, kek. From what I hear, its not the case here, which is good enough for a try.

[FoamySlobbers]

the grindy part happens after you are done with the story.

[Serpiko82]

Originally posted by atheist:

the grindy part happens after you are done with the story.

You mean, collecting parts from those little green shinies?

[Serpiko82]

Anyway, there are SOME activities that fall far within heavy grind territory, but thank goodness those are absolutely optional and unnecessary to progression, unless you want to unlock the perfect score achievement at all costs:
- Finding all SCABs (wristwatches). They're scattered throughout the world and are extremely tiny, even if they emit light they can easily go unnoticed. You can even buy a dedicated upgrade for the scanner to detect them. However, they're irrelevant in gameplay terms, since all they do is unlocking alternative color schemes for the interface and the menus.
- Getting gold cards for ALL creatures. That can be a real pain, since every creature that can respawn has got a 1% or so chance of dropping a gold card, up to 10% (iirc) for bosses. If luck isn't on your side, you will be killing A LOT before you get all gold cards.
(Supposedly, getting gold cards should unlock and improve a specific mutation, but that may not be working currently.)
- Finding all raw science bubbles. Some of them are so hidden than I can't find them even with the scanner beeping. No big deal though, you don't need to collect every single bubble in the map to afford the stuff you need from the shop.

Also, if you plan to consistently use explosives in combat, you may find crafting them a bit tedious, since one of the ingredients in particular is only available in a specific place, in limited numbers, it doesn't stack in the inventory AND it quickly expires unless used for crafting asap. But if you can live without explosives and only use them for demolition purposes where required, you'll be fine.

[RequiemsRose]

Oh there is one thing about progression in general that I personally noticed when i first started playing, specifically related to that "there is rarely only one way to accomplish a task in this game" part I mentioned earlier as well. There are often multiple ways to go about accomplishing certain goals, and the apparent solution is not always the easiest one. Sometimes you can find a MUCH easier way to do something by, as ironic as it may sound, doing other things instead. Sometimes it isn't difficult because you are alone, but because you are taking a harder approach without realizing it.

I can give the first example I noticed in my game, so as to avoid any major spoilers (like you would likely reach this point pretty quickly and its early on in the story with no actual story content involved, just bugs you may not yet know about if you havent played) and still give a decent impression of what I mean. I will still put it in spoiler text in case you dont even want that much spoiled though:
Fairly early on in the game you start needing certain bug bits as crafting materials from bugs that you realistically have very little chance of fighting at the time. In some cases it can seem like a catch 22, like you would use a gas mask to deal with the stink bugs fart cloud, but you need stinkbug parts to make that mask. This is where I made my first mistake and stubbornly decided to fight unprepared anyway, to a lot of frustration. Didn't find out until later on in my game that the easier alternative there doesn't even involve stinkbugs at all. You can get those same bug bits from web sacs that the spiders make as well, some of which are delightfully unguarded or lightly guarded if you know where to find them (and the actual story will point you to a place with a lot of them at around the same time you reach this point in progression)

[Serpiko82]

Originally posted by RequiemsRose:

Oh there is one thing about progression in general that I personally noticed when i first started playing, specifically related to that "there is rarely only one way to accomplish a task in this game" part I mentioned earlier as well. There are often multiple ways to go about accomplishing certain goals, and the apparent solution is not always the easiest one. Sometimes you can find a MUCH easier way to do something by, as ironic as it may sound, doing other things instead. Sometimes it isn't difficult because you are alone, but because you are taking a harder approach without realizing it.

This is very true also when it comes to reaching certain places.

Even though building can and will eventually get you anywhere, it can be very time consuming. Fact is, in most cases the game DOES provide you at least one parkour route to reach remote places without the need to build. Such routes just range from "obvious" to "extremely convoluted" (hello, wheelbarrow).

For example, without spoilers, you
technically can reach the top of the picnic table by building, but that will require an insane amount of time and work. Instead, it is more convenient to explore the surroundings: with a little observation and logic, you will be able to create a permanent access point by performing a single action.

[Serverus88]

Originally posted by SwiftFart:

Not gonna lie, it is a bit grindy; and unlike with conan there are no settings to mess with to increase the harvesting amount. But as a single player, for me anyway, it's not rage inducing. I do sigh when I see I need something across the map but I haven't yet felt like quitting because of it. I have raged quit because of hard bosses but that's it.
And even the hard bosses, yeah it'd be easier to beat them with others of course, but they're not invincible and can be taken down solo with the proper gear (weapons+armor+ meds and buff drinks, and some patience).

It's ultimately up to you to decide if the game itself is worth pushing through those things but I like to think it is, I have a lot of fun in Grounded and hope you still can too

The traveling part can be pretty tedious but once you establish ziplines for hotspots it becomes significantly easier. One of my lines, no ♥♥♥♥ goes for like 1000cms, its a 2 min ride.