BlackJack67

All the replies are true, however even with the craftable whetstones, there is still an insane amount of grinding for players to go through to get everything upgraded all the way, especially for mighty items. 15 supreme whetstones are needed to upgrade from level 7 to 9. For mighty upgrades, this needs 30 supreme whetstones. I feel like I get around 1 in 3 black ox beetle’s to drop a horn (though I may be wrong on that.) So possibly around. So without renewable stones, I have to kill around 90 black ox beetles to upgrade one weapon! If one is playing alone that’s bad enough, but with multiplayer that stretches the resources pretty thin!

I totally agree, especially on the armor vs weapons thing. Dev’s, if you see this, please make supreme whetstones easier/more abundant!

I really like OP (Obsidian Owl’s) post. I think it’s awesome how much love and care the dev’s have put into the game, and with a little more tweaking I think it would be a perfect game! PROBLEMS- I totally agree that the upgrade system needs to be revised, especially with tier III. (I think I’m ~in day 380ish within game, and that’s with very seldom sleeping.) I don’t care as much about base building, so the majority of my time has been grinding for resources. even with picking up almost, if not all of the tier III stones, I still only have one or two weapons at level 9, a small handful at level 8, and finally have most of my weapons/tools to level 7. I thought twinkling shells would have been the hard part, but really it’s been Supreme whetstones. It looks like Supreme plates are decent, I’ve gotten a decent amount from grinding ladybirds, and I’ve loved that they also drop ladybug parts. I haven’t loved the ox beetle drops though, it’s felt like I get about 1/3 horns for my trouble. The drop rate with ladybirds are also pretty low, but at least one occasionally gets 2 in a drop, with good concentrations of ladybirds in specific spots, and usually quick to defeat. Another problem with this system is armor vs weapon balance when it comes to upgrade scarcity. I would much rather easily have five level 9 weapons and one level 9 armor vs the opposite which we have now. With bug weaknesses and resistances being as they are, it’s best if one has a specific tool/weapon for the job. Contrasting that is armor can fit into many/most different situations just fine. One more change I would make is to the “natural” weapon flavors (mint mace, spicy coaltana, salt morning star, sour ax.) Each has their own flavor, so why do they take mighty globs instead of their candy elements? This just makes them much more grindy (2 stones per upgrade,) which takes away whetstones to upgrade the other weapons/tools. I do most of the playing and grinding, and a friend occasionally joins me to play through the mission bits. Between us both, it’s taking far too long to get all the upgrade parts we need to get a full arsenal upgraded. POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS- Perhaps the dev’s could change the upgrading system to be more like the glue masher with multiple types of bugs to fulfill the whetstone/plating requirement for each tier. Or like OP’s idea about having each tier of ant part contributing to their respective tier of upgrade material. Regardless, I think the rocks SHOULD respawn like all the other materials, even if it is 2-3 in game days. In the meantime, at least please fix the drop rate of black ox horns to 100%, or near that % but with the chance to drop 2? Pretty please? CONCLUSION- Thank you to any other players or dev’s who took the time to read this long post! I am a humble enjoyer of this awesome game, the devs would know much more about balancing the game than I. This is my first ever discussion post about any game on a forum, which hopefully shows just how passionate I am about Grounded! Thank you devs for all your hard work! TL;DR- Dev’s, Please fix the upgrade grind!!!