Basic info first: until recently, I've only played Ark in single or locally with my hubby. I've never been on any public servers other than HD.

Now, having said that... can somebody explain, why there are foundations everywhere?

I see places where different tribes stick a lot of metal foundations, without rhyme or reason. They don't later build in the area where they stick the foundations. And while the foundations don't necessarily block vast amounts of high end resources, like crystals or obsidian, they do block sometimes:
- simply stone, wood;
- metal (on Ragnarok, there are rarely big concentrations of metal, mostly it's all scattered, which makes it easier to obtain on low level, but harder to harvest on high level, when you need a lot);
- the possibility of fishing.

And they just simply destroy the nice view, overnight.

Ugh.

So, why do players do that???