A Rework of Elemental/Candy Weaknesses for Grounded

[ObsidianOwl]

Playing the 1.0 release of Grounded and seeing the changes towards upgrades for weapons and overall progression has been a bumpy ride to say the least. I love Grounded but to say that this 1.0 release doesn't feel rushed in certain areas is silly. The elemental candies that can be put on weapons are kind of useless in way. Obviously, I know that bugs have weaknesses to certain types of candies, its just that limiting down a type of weapon to be effective on certain types of enemies is very problematic. "In what ways?" you might ask, well...

1. Sour is useless, as only...

• ARC.R
• Assistant Manager
• Director Schmector
• Moth
• Scarab
• Spiny Water Flea
• TAYZ.T

Are weak against it, and the ARC.R, TAYZ.T and Assistant Manger are enemies that are both weak to Sour And Salty and also you would never be a able use sour on the Assistant Manger or the other types of robots as you would had to have completed the Black Ant Lab completely in order to get the tier II crafting recipes for the globs and then also complete the Haze Lab in order to get the oven to cook said globs and then you would need to get the tier three hammer from Black Ox Beetles and then venture to the harder part of the upper yard, dodge all the new enemy types AND THEN break the sour wormholes in order create a sour damage weapon to use on a few of the robots and Assistant Manger (I'm going be honest, I don't think this was thought through well...). The other enemies, except for the Spiny Water Fleas and Director Schmector, are also weak to other types of candies. Sooooo... Sour is pretty much, useless...

2. Certain candy types ARE going to be better than others. On the wiki it shows that most enemies that you would be consistently fighting are enemies that are weak to Spicy and Fresh.

3. No point in limiting a weapon to be strong against certain types of enemies when you could just upgrade the base damage to be higher with mighty globs and it be effective towards everything you fight.

Sooo... How would we fix this? Well... I have an idea. For this idea to work, I think that maybe getting rid of said elemental weakness would be required, so lets just dive in to how this works...

 

Essentially, Each elemental effect would be applied to a weapon... When hitting with your weapon it will have a RNG chance of applying a elemental effect on the enemy, depending on what element you chose to put on your weapon. This RNG chance would happen more often the more you upgrade your weapon down the route you chose. There would be a visual indication effect that appears on the weapon when attacking to show that you have applied the effect. Whenever you get this elemental effect on your weapon fighting enemies, each one always applies a very minor chip damage effect (DOT/Damage Over Time). All candies do the same amount of chip damage and it doesn't stack chip damage if you mange to get a lucky second chance of getting effects on your weapons. The way each element would be different from one another is that they all give a different type of buff to the player that is very short lived but would most likely happen a lot of the time when fighting enemies. The different ways that these effects functions would be as follows...

 

Fresh - Visual: Would apply a white, cool blue breeze effect that moves about in the wind in a short burst (Maybe some sparkles to freshen up the look)

Effect: A burst of Freshness that appears over the enemy dealing a good chunk of damage

Buff: Lookin' Fresh - Would speed up the players attack speed in a very short burst

 

Salty - Visual: Would apply a popping rocks like effect, that covers the enemies body with little popping salt rocks

Effect: A little fireworks' display of salt rocks exploding dealing a sporadic amount of damage

Buff: Salty Abs - Would give the players chunky defense in very short burst

 

Spicy -  Visual: Would apply a red, radiating flame effect that bursts out in the wind in a short burst (Like flames)

Effect: A burst of red flame dust that kind of explodes over the enemy dealing a good chunk of damage

Buff: Spicy Rage - Would decrease stamina usage in a short burst

 

Sour -  Visual: Would apply a mini sour explosion effect, colored green and sparkly in short bursts

Effect: A sour busting explosion that deals a good chunk of damage

Buff: Sour Veins - enemies that attack you receive the damage they give to you (would last for a while until an enemy attacks you)

 

This is my idea for reworking the way elemental effects on weapons would work. Although there may be things to tweak or rethink, overall I think this would be better than the way it's implemented now as these are all generally useful and don't overshadow one another. Each elemental effect is useful and unique in it's own way which I think would promote player creativity and experimentation. I don't know if having weaknesses in the game, if this were to get implemented, would make it better or worse. I do think that the weaknesses of bugs, for elemental weaknesses specifically, should be reconsidered. As for Mighty Globs, or standard upgrading, I think that should just stay as is, as I feel you are trading the elemental effects for more chunky damage overall. I also don't want this new way of functioning to be too overpowered so testing and trying out would be required.

[Anon cannon]

All the orc bugs are weak to sour. You just don’t see that in the game.

[ObsidianOwl]

I actually do know that the O.R.C bugs are weak to sour (I found out about that tip after having made this forum post a while ago); I still don't think that makes sour as useful than any of the other candies. It's for one event only, some Spiny Water Fleas, and then the Director (As well as some other bugs, but they are also weak to other types of candies/salt). It feels like a rushed element of the 1.0 release.