Loot? Weapons? Anything?

[xShapelessx]

Okay, so I bought this game thinking it was going to have actual inventory and weapons. It's an alright experience so far, but the lack of unlockables is really making this "roguelike/lite" experience to be sort of lacking. Maybe the reviews overhyped it, but I'm kinda shocked there's nothing to unlock.

Also, in about 12 runs, I maybe found 2 perks per dungeon. NOT ENOUGH. I find myself just wandering through empty rooms, not ever finding anything interesting. The best roguelike games have a plethroa of perks. Think "Vagante". Every run, within the first few minutes, you're already powered up with an assortment of perks found in the level and to top it off, you could unlock perks to equip in the hub, prior to your run. These are things this game absolutely NEEDS

[Goodguy3]

It's very bare bones, indeed. You have no defensive/evasive options at all and enemies do contact damage. Healing is inexplicably sparse. There's no progression other than some really expensive "Upgrades", most of which don't really do anything and others add stuff that should be the default (healing after boss fight, hidden rooms, etc).

[Black Snake]

This is made by one guy and is still in EA. there are still over 100 upgrades and 2 different builds. If you are looking for binding of isaac levels of content or dead cells you are in the wrong game. this is a traditional dungeon crawler. There is more plans for more builds later down the road.

[xShapelessx]

Originally posted by Black Snake:

This is made by one guy and is still in EA. there are still over 100 upgrades and 2 different builds. If you are looking for binding of isaac levels of content or dead cells you are in the wrong game. this is a traditional dungeon crawler. There is more plans for more builds later down the road.

It is tagged as a roguelike and is absolutely presented in that way. Saying 100 different upgrades doesn't mean anything if they arent unlockable or if you only get 1 or 2 per dungeon run. Also, I grew up on Eye of the Beholder and Wizardry Heart of the Maelstrom. Those VERY early dungeon crawlers had 10 x the progression and character building.

Most people buying this game are expecting the things I have mentioned.

[xShapelessx]

and yea, I'm aware it's early access. been putting money into EA games since 2014. I'm simply asking the DEV some questions. Don't need your negative, butthurt response.

[Rambo Burrito]

Maybe the reviews overhyped it

I love this game so very much, but this is my one huge gripe about Steam in general. People who've played on Itch are posting reviews the day this is released with hardly no play time. The last version of Ancient Dungeons, on Itch, was released in April. There is seven months of work in-between the Itch release and the Steam release and here we have reviews where they don't know what they're talking about.

This is why, even though I've purchased it on Itch, I'm playing through a couple of times before posting a review. I'm madly in love with this game, but I'm making sure something isn't game-breaking or turns me off from it before I write one.

[xShapelessx]

Originally posted by Goodguy3:

It's very bare bones, indeed. You have no defensive/evasive options at all and enemies do contact damage. Healing is inexplicably sparse. There's no progression other than some really expensive "Upgrades", most of which don't really do anything and others add stuff that should be the default (healing after boss fight, hidden rooms, etc).

yeah these things need to be fixed for this game to last/ be interesting. If I want a "VR experience", I'm not playing "ANCIENT DUNGEON VR". I'm playing Boneworks. I got Ancient Dungeon for the rpg progression and roguelike elements entirely.

[xShapelessx]

Originally posted by Rez:

Maybe the reviews overhyped it

I love this game so very much, but this is my one huge gripe about Steam in general. People who've played on Itch are posting reviews the day this is released with hardly no play time. The last version of Ancient Dungeons, on Itch, was released in April. There is seven months of work in-between the Itch release and the Steam release and here we have reviews where they don't know what they're talking about.

This is why, even though I've purchased it on Itch, I'm playing through a couple of times before posting a review. I'm madly in love with this game, but I'm making sure something isn't game-breaking or turns me off from it before I write one.

yeah, good point. I'm kind of doing that too.

[xShapelessx]

Oh and we need a dodge mechanic to avoid that Slime boss and those dashing zombies.

[Nosferatuno]

Originally posted by Twitch.tv/xshapelessx:

Originally posted by Black Snake:

This is made by one guy and is still in EA. there are still over 100 upgrades and 2 different builds. If you are looking for binding of isaac levels of content or dead cells you are in the wrong game. this is a traditional dungeon crawler. There is more plans for more builds later down the road.

It is tagged as a roguelike and is absolutely presented in that way. Saying 100 different upgrades doesn't mean anything if they arent unlockable or if you only get 1 or 2 per dungeon run. Also, I grew up on Eye of the Beholder and Wizardry Heart of the Maelstrom. Those VERY early dungeon crawlers had 10 x the progression and character building.

Most people buying this game are expecting the things I have mentioned.

Hey dude, just letting you know that the definition of Roguelike is pretty vague and arbitrary as of recently.

If you're using the traditional definition of a Roguelike then none of the games that you mentioned are remotely close to what it means.

I think you're getting caught up on definitions that are in nature vague, ever-changing, and arbitrary. If you're that angry over the roguelike tag then refund it.

[xShapelessx]

Originally posted by Clown Eggs:

Originally posted by Twitch.tv/xshapelessx:

It is tagged as a roguelike and is absolutely presented in that way. Saying 100 different upgrades doesn't mean anything if they arent unlockable or if you only get 1 or 2 per dungeon run. Also, I grew up on Eye of the Beholder and Wizardry Heart of the Maelstrom. Those VERY early dungeon crawlers had 10 x the progression and character building.

Most people buying this game are expecting the things I have mentioned.

Hey dude, just letting you know that the definition of Roguelike is pretty vague and arbitrary as of recently.

If you're using the traditional definition of a Roguelike then none of the games that you mentioned are remotely close to what it means.

I think you're getting caught up on definitions that are in nature vague, ever-changing, and arbitrary. If you're that angry over the roguelike tag then refund it.

You are contributing nothing to this conversation. Go away.

[Nosferatuno]

Originally posted by Twitch.tv/xshapelessx:

Originally posted by Clown Eggs:

Hey dude, just letting you know that the definition of Roguelike is pretty vague and arbitrary as of recently.

If you're using the traditional definition of a Roguelike then none of the games that you mentioned are remotely close to what it means.

I think you're getting caught up on definitions that are in nature vague, ever-changing, and arbitrary. If you're that angry over the roguelike tag then refund it.

You are contributing nothing to this conversation. Go away.

No, I've told you that you misunderstand something fundamentally that you're complaining about. That's just contribution that you don't want. It's very different.

Best of luck on not being able to shift your opinions or views as new information is presented.

I'm not telling you to like the game, I'm telling you that a piece of your reasoning is invalid. Bye.

[ErThu]

Hey thank you for giving some feedback. While I do agree that there is room for improvement, I feel like there are some points I'm confused about:

There are unlockable items. In fact, almost each milestone that you complete unlocks a new item that can be found in the dungeon. Furthermore, there are insight upgrades and a crossbow loadout you can unlock. Additionally once you manage to win a run, you unlock an additional shop in your base which lets you upgrade your weapon loadouts. So I feel like even though there could be more to unlock, there is still a few things to strive torwards.

The "finding two perks per dungeon" seems pretty low. While there may be less upgrades in the first floor, as soon as you get into the second or third floor the amounts of upgrades you can find should increase by a lot. Maybe you were unlucky in your runs, but the goal I want to design with this game is having each run feel different and that means giving the player enough pickups to build up cool synergies. I do agree though that there is definitely a need to balance the distribution of items.

I also agree that there needs to be more unlockables at the home base, especially more upgrades and things to do. The progression system definitely needs a lot more content. But that's why we are in early access, collecting feedback and improving the experience.

What I'm really interested in is if you have any suggestions on games I should take a look at (I saw Vagante already) or which mechanics you feel are missing (dodge mechanic for example).

[Kuiq]

(looks like the dev got a response in while I was typing everything :p)

Gonna try and respond to a few of these comments and try to get some more feedback/discussion rolling.

There is another weapon combo you can unlock and more are planned. They take a long time to feel right and develop, you have to make sure every item and possible combo works with the new weapon combo which takes a considerable amount of time.

There's quite a few items you can unlock through milestones, insight upgrades that can be unlocked and the anvil you can unlock that also gives some more unlockable stuff, as well as journal pages for lore which also ties into some progression stuff I won't spoil, an extra difficulty you can unlock, ng+ that you can unlock and more stuff being added in the future.

In terms of items you find during runs you have to remember balancing is super important, you can't just throw 10 items at the player in the first dungeon otherwise it would be too easy and you'll just breeze through the whole game which imo is not very satisfying.
(This might change in the future it really just depends on how balancing changes over time)

Defense/Evasion, most of the ranged enemy attacks and be deflected/blocked with your sword, there is also an evasion stat (however I think you're more referring to actual evasion mechanics rather than a stat). I'm not quite sure what you would be looking for, for non stat evasion. If you have some ideas please share. :)

There is progression other than "expensive upgrades, most of which don't really do anything and others add stuff that should be the default (healing after boss fight, hidden rooms, etc)" As far as what you consider should be default is debatable. Having hidden rooms as something unlockable lets the player know they actually exist and is something to look forward to, It's not an expensive upgrade. And the other stuff that can be unlocked changes how the dungeon can generate, over time as you get better at the game you get more and more of the upgrades unlocked.

If genre tags are that important to you, this game was ADVERTISED as a rogue-lite, even if the community tags on steam say rogue-like that is not what this is.

As far as a dodge mechanic, this is highly debatable and something I personally don't think is needed at all however this is why community feedback is important. It might be something that ends up getting added in some fashion in the future.

In the end keep all feedback coming, positive or negative It's all important and if you want some faster updates/responses etc I would recommend joining the discord, lots of discussion goes on in there :)

[xShapelessx]

Okay that's enough for me to be honest. I'm just happy to know there is some stuff being worked on down the line in regards to what I've been saying!

The biggest miss for me so far is the lack of loot to be found IN the actual dungeon. The best part about these dungeon run type games, is the randomized loot you can find.

[xShapelessx]

Originally posted by ErThu:

Hey thank you for giving some feedback. While I do agree that there is room for improvement, I feel like there are some points I'm confused about:

There are unlockable items. In fact, almost each milestone that you complete unlocks a new item that can be found in the dungeon. Furthermore, there are insight upgrades and a crossbow loadout you can unlock. Additionally once you manage to win a run, you unlock an additional shop in your base which lets you upgrade your weapon loadouts. So I feel like even though there could be more to unlock, there is still a few things to strive torwards.

The "finding two perks per dungeon" seems pretty low. While there may be less upgrades in the first floor, as soon as you get into the second or third floor the amounts of upgrades you can find should increase by a lot. Maybe you were unlucky in your runs, but the goal I want to design with this game is having each run feel different and that means giving the player enough pickups to build up cool synergies. I do agree though that there is definitely a need to balance the distribution of items.

I also agree that there needs to be more unlockables at the home base, especially more upgrades and things to do. The progression system definitely needs a lot more content. But that's why we are in early access, collecting feedback and improving the experience.

What I'm really interested in is if you have any suggestions on games I should take a look at (I saw Vagante already) or which mechanics you feel are missing (dodge mechanic for example).

I appreciate the response!

The game has insane potential, I just hope it doesn't become one of those "rogue lite" games that has very little to strive for other than simply "beating it".

Games to check out for inspiration/ideas:

Barony
Magicite
Dungreed