Whoa! Overtune damage discussion. Orc Ladybug and Boss.

[Glermz]

Hey Everyone,

First off, I want to mention that I’m playing Grounded 2 as Perma Death mode — if I die, I have to start over. Even though this isn’t the intended way to play, I believe my experience can still offer valuable insights for other Grounded players and the devs.
In many ways Grounded 2 is harder than the current Grounded 1, and that’s totally fine. Heck, even the significant healing nerf compared to the first game is fine by me. That said, there are a few things that either need polish or need to be tuned down. As someone who’s been through plenty of runs with max health upgrades and fully upgraded T3 gear, I’ve gone from barely losing health to being one-shotted, which doesn’t feel ideal. Here are a few specific cases:

1. Orc Ladybug

There’s one attack (I believe it’s the charge forward) that can one-shot you. This seems a bit excessive.

2. The Boss Fight

Nothing in this fight should one-shot you if you have T3 fully upgraded gear and max health upgrades — not even the sword charge stab. However, there is one exception: if the boss perfectly parries you, dazing you, you instantly die.
This mechanic feels flawed. Having an attack that deals more damage with no way to avoid it (you can't even see it coming), feels problematic. The fact that the perfect parry mechanic is completely RNG too it doesnt help. You can consistently hit her while she’s blocking, and nothing happens. You can break her guard, and again, nothing happens. But the moment you start hitting her, it’s pure RNG whether she will perfectly parry you, leading to either a flawless fight or, well, "tough luck, you’re dead."

I’m all for one-shot abilities from bosses (which I think can be good for extra added difficulty), but I feel these abilities need to be more fleshed out and should have visible cues that allow players to react.

For instance, the same perfect parry ability causes me to lose 80% of my health if it happens during the fight. However, if I’m hitting her and she perfectly parries me, I die instantly. Why not reverse that? The first instance should require me to dodge or perfect parry the attack, while the second one feels unfair because it’s just RNG. Sometimes, she even perfects parries after I’ve already broken her guard, and she hasn’t fully recovered from it. This leads me to another suggestion: better indicators for counter-attack abilities and preventing mobs from spamming these attacks, especially when they lack visual animations. (Also may I add that if a bug blocks, but you brank the stance, that bug can't re-block again straight after? Gets specially boring agaisnt Multiple Warrior Ants and Orb Weavers)

For example, with Wolf Spiders when you’re using daggers, they’ll sometimes perform the grab attack without going into the fang position at all — it just happens. Sure, after a lot of playtime, you can almost predict the timing by intuition, but I feel like a game like this should always provide visual or sound cues to help with that. Also the costant spam of this attack makes it so that she barely ever does any other attacks except that and the Jump. Can't be intended. 

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These are the most blatant issues I've encountered so far. Everything else that might do more damage than it should is still manageable. For example, bees might deal too much damage with their triple attack, which can sometimes bug out, causing them to hit you even if they’re too far away, or occasionally miss even when they're too close.

Anyway, off the top of my head, in 9 runs where I’m trying to 100% the current content, these are the most glaring problems I’ve found (And the ammount of bugs that are under the mesh... like A LOT).
Keep in mind that this is just my opinion, and I don’t expect changes to these issues to even happen. Just marely feedback and suggestions.

I’ll keep playing Grounded 2 and can’t wait for the next bits of content.
I’ll follow up with a much larger post filled with additional suggestions, but I’ll wait until we get the first couple of fixes for the current issues and bugs.

Best regards,
Stay Grounded,

Glermz

[Zsword]

So part of the problem here is neither set of Tier 3 gear we have right now is good for taking single big hits of damage: Rogue armor is like the second squishiest archtype in the game (after ranger) and Fighter Armor is great for shrugging off multiple little hits, but doesn't have the Resistance to endure big single strikes. Since we don't have a T3 mage armor with its higher resistance, big single hit attacks are just going to hurt. Also make sure you're using your Sticky Lady in Reds and Human Foods. The Mosquito Rapier is also massively buffed in this game compared to 1 and easily let's you keep a Ladyguard to just, ignore any attack in the game. Even guard crushes deal chip damage through it, and sword stamina boost means you almost always have max stamina for light attack sequences.

I also don't know what at all you mean with the boss having a parry attack. Sure they deal a lot of damage but nothing in the fight came close to one shotting me in just the scorpion armor with only 1 health upgrade.

Ladybugs definitely deal massive damage though, especially with the Stampede/bull charge, but that's okay, because I don't think they have a single attack that crushes guards, and attack very slowly and rarely. Big sneak attack strategies resolve normal ladybugs easily enough and will give a big boost against the 1 ORC ladybug in the game that you sort of 'have' to resolve. (and even that one is pretty avoidable)

Also, don't hardcore this game, especially as a first run, in an EA that has that just seems, excessive.

[Glermz]

As I mentioned in my original post, nothing in the fight one-shots you, except when the boss perfect-parries, dazing you and stabbing you. It's extremely rare, but it can happen. You’ve probably never experienced it because you can easily complete the entire fight without the boss doing it (I’ve already beaten this boss without getting hit a single time and ofc she never parried any of my attacks so i never got dazed). So, the problem isn’t the gear or max health, but that one move, probably not even an intended mechanic. 

Secondly, I disagree. T3 gear (even if rogue) and max health at that point should be enough to avoid getting one-shot by any of the current creatures in the Yard. That’s the gear you'll be using to face the stronger bugs and bosses in the next patches.

As for the ladybugs, you're free to disagree. I’m not saying they’re hard to kill; they’re not. I mean, if we go by that logic, nothing is hard to kill once you know what to do. The point is, at the current stage with max health and maxed T3 gear, nothing in the current Yard should be able to one-shot the player. Again, you might disagree, and that’s okay, but there are bugs of the same level who barely do damage to you let alone one-shotting you and then you have that Orc Lady Bug, just doesnt make sense. So, you shouldn’t be punished like this just for missing one perfect parry or dodge.

As for not running hardcore, I just enjoy it because it helps me get better, run the game more times, discover more stuff, notice details, and refine certain strategies. In Whoa! you lose a tone of durability from dying, you have to go back and retrieve all your backpack, so even if you don't play the game in Hardcore this type of unbalance will still affect you and that is why, in my opinion it should be looked at.