How is the progression of the game after beating the final boss?

[Jony_Alviverde]

Is it similar to binding of isaac that keeps presenting you with new stuff, new boss, new biomes, new weapons and basically, infinite gameplay or is it kind of over after beating the last boss, with no reason to keep runing the dungeons?

[Suzaku]

Pretty much no reason to keep playing afterwards. Just prettying up your base.

[BENJY]

There's really nothing to do other than decorate your base. It would be nice to have a progression ladder with more unique followers the higher you go up and extra stats to invest into with gold. Since faith turns into gold, its a nice way to actually keep progressing your character.

[Phae]

I was just about to post something on this topic myself if I couldn't find a posting!

Having some real post-game content would be amazing! I feel like after defeating (insert final boss name here to avoid spoilers) you'd think that Ratau and the other followers would react a little different to your ascendant god lamb, but you spawn into your cult as if you got killed.

[Suzaku]

Originally posted by Phae:

Having some real post-game content would be amazing! I feel like after defeating (insert final boss name here to avoid spoilers) you'd think that Ratau and the other followers would react a little different to your ascendant god lamb, but you spawn into your cult as if you got killed.

"Leader is the ultimate god! All hail leader! Also, I pooped in the corner again, if you could just clean that up for me, that'd be great...."

[Oku]

Don't know for sure but my guess would be the "free content updates coming soon" they talk about in the roadmap option on the main menu will end up being an expansion to the post-boss endless roguelite of each zone.

The crafting and ability trees, blueprints and follower form systems are all right there easily able to be expanded on, so that's what I'd put my money on.

[Sasha Mason]

I was disappointed to see other NPC's not really acknowledge my accomplishments either. Basically, after you finish the game and see the credits, that's it. Nothing else changes and there's nothing to progress anymore either.

At most, you can decorate your base and make it look fancy. I got so many resources now though though that there's hardly any reason for them to work anymore. Completely overflowing with gold.

[Nacre]

Postgame is basically just achievement hunting, and gambling your worthless money in knucklebones. Maybe holding funerals for your now pointless followers, until its just you alone, or you and narinder if you spared him.

[Razzle]

Originally posted by Jony_Alviverde:

Is it similar to binding of isaac that keeps presenting you with new stuff, new boss, new biomes, new weapons and basically, infinite gameplay or is it kind of over after beating the last boss, with no reason to keep runing the dungeons?

0 postgame content
all you gonna do is try to get last achievements
this is not like binding of isaac at all. theres only 5 bosses in the game.

[Yes, I have a Mic.]

Oh Jony. No.
No no no no no no no no no no. Jony, no. No Jony.
I'm sorry Jony but no. Just no.




No.

[Ninian]

Nope. From the postgame it's all about emergent gameplay and... that isn't really more content in the sense people think of it. Mind you that emergent gameplay is more or less what keeps Animal Crossing from utter irrelevance, but this game has nowhere near AC's number of toys to facilitate that mindset.

Crossing my fingers that future updates change that.

[Jony_Alviverde]

That is definitely a miss opportunity here. If it have some of the main progress from Stardew Valley / Binding of Isaac it would be a perfect game them. It really bothers me to play a rogue like game that actually has an end. For me this type of game is addictive due to its infinite gameplay aspect, that keeps you discovering new stuff, new secrets, new weapons, new boss, new areas, new upgrades, everytime you play.

[MTU-RC]

I think most of the replay-ability issue comes from sizing. The crusade arenas are generally too small to make more complicated mobs and and the cult landscape is also too small to make all kinds of different villages. I still need to beat it and I believe I'll play it a second time to experiment with the building and powers more, however.

The size limitations of the cult make it so that there aren't many things to do with your cult in terms of buildings and management as, as soon as you finish whatever you were doing building in your cult you need to sprint back into a crusade or risk not having enough materials to keep the cult holding together. Then at the end you have too many resources and nothing to build since the land you're given to build on is extremely small.

The size limitations of the arenas also severely limit what kind of attack patterns the enemies can have since it can become too crowded quickly or take away the ability to dodge away if all the enemies are attacking in synchronicity.

I think adding more space in the cult and adding more buildings and tools that allow you to spend more time playing with your cult and using your powers would be the best first step since the whole shebbang is about making your cult thrive. Perhaps a progression system where after you beat the final boss you get more space and you can crusade to ¨Conquer¨ more land and build many villages in different biomes and layouts.

Having a more independent cult allows to make the arenas be on their larger square side the same way some rooms already are, and that would allow the devs to add more attack patterns to already existing enemies and more enemies/obstacles/traps without clogging the rooms since they're not so small anymore.

Being able to spend more time away from the cult allows for longer more complex fights to happen; while giving more room to build and not have to always crusade allows you to spend more time playing with your cult. Making it a bit like the sims if you will but with fighting.

TL:DR: I believe making the cult more independent would lead to better combat mechanics being added as you could spend more time fighting instead of having to rush through rooms to get the most resources possible. And more space equals more after game content building a bigger cult/crusading for your new religion.

[Ninian]

Those are all really good thoughts MTU-RC, I'm impressed how much thought you put into this. That makes a LOT of sense, and it'd be a natural way to create space to grow the game. The one thing I noticed about this game's simulator side compared to a proper sim like Rimworld or Oxygen Not Included is that the further you go the *less* you have to micromanage. I mean it's true of both of those games with some automation but even then you're constantly jumping between your automations to make sure they aren't breaking. In Cult of the Lamb it's true the further you go the more independent your cult. Of course you have to be careful not to make things TOO easy to manage or you don't get that fun tension of knowing the state of your cult while fighting. So I'd propose that while you do get a more independent cult as you go, it'd be interesting if that independence opened other challenges. Such as rival cults beginning to crusade against YOU and needing to build defenses. It could come in the form of scheduled attacks that will be hard for your cult to fight unless you're present for the defense. (or defeat the boss organizing the attack to cancel it) Attacks would get annoying if it was frequent so it'd be like... once every 10 days or something else infrequent but important to get a handle on. That way even as the encounters get expanded and a lot of the micromanaging eases off, you still have to keep one eye back at home. The addition of random events back at home requiring a response could be interesting too.