Potential Update Ideas for Grounded

[z3r04901]

I am around 120 days into my dedicated Grounded save. Starting out the game I slowly realized the insane potential it has to grow. The bugs, the POIs and the mechanics coincide perfectly with each other to create an immersive world and story-line. I am taking my time with the game so I can enjoy every little thing to its max potential but I get disappointed when I realise that the amount of content is quickly coming to an end. It would be nice to get more content updates instead of holiday and QoL updates. This leads me to the main idea of my post...

If there were to be a huge update this year it would be awsome to see the following things... I think the Grounded community would agree on this as well.

I am no game developper so I am going to try and keep it simple based on my knowledge on the time it takes to make a game like Grounded...

Futur Bug Updates

1. Combat mechanics update...

I havn't yet played games like Elden Ring or any of the Dark Souls, but I caught an interesting theme in the weapons, armor and combat system. Its all set up like a game of DnD. Some armors are designed for Tank players, others for Support\Range and others for close up damage dealers. This does not matter though because of the parry mechanic. One could essentially beat the entire game if you perfect parry every single attack. 

So, it would be nice to switch up how bugs attack in order to catch the player off guard. 

Idea: **ADD MORE ATTACK PATTERNS AND MOVES TO SOME BUGS LIKE THE WOLF SPIDER **

An excellent example of a bug that has a near perfect move set is the Rolly Polly with its roll move and when it rolls up as a shield.

An idea that joins everything together (bugs, story, POIs)

Now this idea could be almost impossible, but it would probably win the game many prizes and triple the number of concurrent players.

 

Yes, the current map is relatively big, for early to mid game. But, by late game, most players have the most sophisticated zipline system known to mankind. Crossing the map is no longer a problem and it makes it seem small. 

My base idea is... **Expand the map** 

There are many ways the game devs could do this. What I am suggesting is connect this backyard to the neighbor's. Make it so an event breaks a hole into the next backyard, but in order to avoid repetition make the other backyard a greenhouse,  with a tropical biome. 

The idea of a bigger tropical biome like the Upper Yard allows the ability to add a bigger variety of bugs and to expand the story. Maybe, Dr.Tully's neigbor is an Ominent Agent and is studying stuff in his greenhouse. 

As I mentioned, expanding the backyard into a greenhouse would allow a bigger variety of bugs.

In a greenhouse it is particularly humid. This could mean that more dew drops appear in the morning, a sprinkler system could cause small flash floods in specific areas. 

A humid environment allows for more bugs...

1. Vampire Ants\Bullet Ants (google it). They appear having jaws of an ant-lion and no queen. They could be an Ominent experiment released accidentally in the greenhouse. They would deal more damage than a fire ant but have the health of the black ants. Another alternative to this which would prove as a simpler idea to the public are Bullet Ants, they would deal strong poison trickling damage.

Items:

Ant parts (heads etc..) = Armor that has a thorns effect dealing damage to opponent when the attack

Bullet Ant stinger = knife that deals insane poison stacking damage

Benefit: No queen for either species so no boss. No boss = less development work

2.Centipede

A fast multi legged bug that has similar combos to the Wolf Spider but lives in various dens around the backyard. Health wise it would be like a Rolly Polly but would deal poison damage like a Black Widow.

Items:

Centipede parts = body segments = centipede armor, tanky armor that has poison resistance

Centipede fangs = poison resist smoothie and sword that has life leech and  venom damage

3. Dragon Flies

First ever mount in Grounded, that is  all I have to say.

4.Butterflies

Have a healing aura around them. Very rare apparition.

5. Scorpions

Wolf spider with different combos, piercing damage + poison damage.

6. Water Scorpions (Google it)

They stay at the surface waiting for the player to surface, poison damage. 

7. Wasps and Hornets

Basically Wasps = Orb Weavers and Hornets = Black Widows or Wolf Spiders

Both deal poison and peircing damage, Wasps swarm and Hornets dont but are beefier.

 

Conclusion

I could go on forever. If you read this you would get the general concept. Grounded has insane potential. It is very popular with at the time of writing this has around 15 million concurrent players. But, it needs to stand out more. Make it the childhood dream to walk through the grass blades observing a small world where the bugs are the size of a school bus and one must survive and end Ominent's rein.