Harder Difficulty Than Woah!

[IGNS]

I can say that grounded is one of my absolute favourite games of all time without a doubt, however, if you've played grounded for as much time in single-player as a player like myself the game can get pretty stale, so I have a new idea to breathe some fresh air into the backyard, I propose a new difficulty, a difficulty even tougher than Woah!, this difficulty should be an absolute challenge to even the best of players, in this difficulty almost every bug, from larva to wolf spiders, should be able to kill the player if they are unprepared, this difficulty should have a big emphasis on smoothies, weaknesses and resistances, perfect blocks and armour set abilities, I think that this difficulty would be excellent for experienced players who have been playing since the beginning 2 years ago.

I hope you consider my idea any developers who may be reading this.

 

[Alynxkia]

I honestly never thought I’d be advocating for an extra hard mode (Yikes!) as I usually avoid that setting in games as it’s more tedious than fun half the time, (damage sponge enemies = longer battles but nothing else), but Grounded could be made more challenging in various ways besides that so I’m for an additional difficulty.

The effectiveness of mutations could be lowered. Or mutations could take more levels (most of which require gameplay) to reach the max effectiveness. 

Armor and weapon upgrades could be less effective. More levels could be added to reach the current max levels. 

As IGNs suggested enemies could be more resistant to certain weapon types making it more critical for the right weapons to be used. The downside of this is we really would need more inventory space to carry more weapons with us. Minus pet inventory the developers have not seemed fond of expanding inventory slots. 

I am completely against adding increased aggro; especially for mosquitoes. I still want to be able to escape/avoid battle. 

I’m only for increased food and thirst drain if meals can stack and we can upgrade canteens further. I don’t mind having to plan/prep more but inventory space could make this difficulty super annoying.

Tougher enemies could be in the labs. Maybe more orb weaver juniors or an actual orb weaver in the Hedge. (The quantity of spiders does not need to increase, just the difficulty of the enemy) 

The pond lab could have an ‘Intern’ in the final room; as in a lesser Assistant Manager. 

The Haze is actually pretty decent as is; especially if the other difficulties mentioned above are added. 

I’m tempted to say the Black Ant Hill is okay as is too. Enemy variety is it’s only real flaw but it makes sense why it’s limited. Good boss. 

The termite hill is…. Boring. It’s not that it doesn’t have enough enemies, it’s just not as much fun to explore as the labs… likely as it is not a lab. It has a boss unlike the red ant hill. I wouldn’t want more termites… maybe a few ladybird larva could be added to increase enemy variety. 
 

The red ant hill… it’s not a lab and there is no boss but have you ever watched TagTV play Grounded? A wolf spider got in the red any hill and the sheer chaos that resulted in makes me want to say that should be a thing that can happen; a wolf spider could track you inside. I will hate it, but appreciate it at the same time.  The red ant hill seems set up for this kind of encounter as you can escape by dropping through the hole in the floor or by swimming in the tunnel … but you still only have one real exit so….good luck. I do think the wolf spider’s speed would need to reduced in the red ant hill as that is typically a new player area so a good portion of the time the player will not be ready to defeat that enemy type.   As for a wolf spider stalking you into the black ant hill; the layout in some parts would make things easy for escape but in others areas you’d definitely need to be strong enough to kill it. Lots of dead ends to be trapped in. Lots of lab doors a wolf spider can’t fit through to let you escape.  The termite mound is another area where you could get stalked but would likely need to be able to take out the wolf spider to survive. 

Those are just a few ideas on how ‘Yikes!’ Mode could exist without just making enemies be damage sponges. Sadly most of the ideas require far more coding than damage sponges so the feasibility…. Sigh.