i was having fun until

[TooPoopie]

the god awful abysmal boss fight that constantly attacked my wagon and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ all the gold and resources i had just collected.. not even allowing me to heal consistently

then, worst of all finding out after i died that here is no meta progression. sadly, that's gonna be a refund

the game should be single player focused with the option of coop, and should focus on tight combat and resource progression, along with exciting rogue-like dynamic mechanics, and then maybe some base building / management system, and then it might actually be good

[Sancheese]

And you missed the worst part: if you still beat the boss at that point, you do not have an opportunity to recover the knocked out resources. It cuts straight to the reward selection.

[Octofox Community Cat]

Hi, we're sorry you didn't find the gaming experience you were looking for.
We understand your feedback, especially when you say "focus on single player". But our focus is on a good co-op experience. With that in mind, it's a little more difficult to implement meta progression because we don't want to have a balance problem when people are playing online.
But it's not something we're not thinking about. So let's see what the development process brings :)

Originally posted by Sancheese:

And you missed the worst part: if you still beat the boss at that point, you do not have an opportunity to recover the knocked out resources. It cuts straight to the reward selection.

Thanks, that's a good note. Let's see if we find a solution for that :)

[TooPoopie]

I think from a player's perspective mind box, as a dev you should consider what it is that the player is actually playing for.. what are they trying to achieve or build towards?

I like the gameplay loop but there has to be something fundamental that the core game is built around...

and if you are focusing on coop, then fine, whatever. but if that's the case then you are still falling short in my opinion.. what's the actual coop experience other than queuing up for a wagon run? I think you should consider a cat clan social experience with a shared base building / mini games, just something that makes it seem that what you're doing is providing a rewarding experience

[Saladien]

Originally posted by TooPoopie:

I think from a player's perspective mind box, as a dev you should consider what it is that the player is actually playing for.. what are they trying to achieve or build towards?

I like the gameplay loop but there has to be something fundamental that the core game is built around...

and if you are focusing on coop, then fine, whatever. but if that's the case then you are still falling short in my opinion.. what's the actual coop experience other than queuing up for a wagon run? I think you should consider a cat clan social experience with a shared base building / mini games, just something that makes it seem that what you're doing is providing a rewarding experience

I like the gameplay loop but there has to be something fundamental that the core game is built around...

Thats the most important sentence. I think that is the games biggest issue after playing it for a while.

[Buntkreuz]

I think Meta Upgrades could affect several things that also allow to balance the difficulty properly.
Like Wagon customization options you can unlock, character progression or passive bonuses.

I dont think balance is a problem. Theres plenty of games with meta upgrades that have coop.
Spell Brigade for example is a standard top down shooter with individual upgrades for each player and that still works mostly fine.

The core rule there is, to provide a constantly rising challenge for players to combat.
STart easy, unlock meta upgrades, you feel ready for phase 2, then phase 3, then phase 4 and then if you are still powerful enough maybe active a few mission mutators to spice it up even more.

Unlock more wagon types, improve them, level your character, unlock new gadgets or upgrades, more routes to drive, longer routes to travel.

Character progression could allow players to unlock more choices.
Like lets say a player has a character and improving the character does not give standard permanent +10 damage upgrades but rather more slots to socket upgrades into and the more he/she plays, the more different buffs are offered to pick from.

[Octofox Community Cat]

Hi everyone, sorry for the late response, we're still catching up on all the feedback over the holidays :)

Originally posted by TooPoopie:

I think from a player's perspective mind box, as a dev you should consider what it is that the player is actually playing for.. what are they trying to achieve or build towards?

You're so right with this one. That's why we're looking at all your feedback and also trying to implement ideas we've gathered from the community. But as we are a small team, it all takes a bit of time.

Originally posted by TooPoopie:

what's the actual coop experience other than queuing up for a wagon run?

Would you say that different player roles would make for a more co-op experience? So that each individual has more of a unique task and without their role you wouldn't survive the nights?

Originally posted by Buntkreuz:

The core rule there is, to provide a constantly rising challenge for players to combat.
STart easy, unlock meta upgrades, you feel ready for phase 2, then phase 3, then phase 4 and then if you are still powerful enough maybe active a few mission mutators to spice it up even more.

As I understand it, the difficulty of the game (amount of enemies, HP, damage, etc.) wouldn't depend on the difficulty you choose at the beginning, but rather on the players' progress so far?

Thanks for your feedback :)

[Buntkreuz]

Originally posted by Octofox Community Cat:

Hi everyone, sorry for the late response, we're still catching up on all the feedback over the holidays :)

Originally posted by TooPoopie:

I think from a player's perspective mind box, as a dev you should consider what it is that the player is actually playing for.. what are they trying to achieve or build towards?

You're so right with this one. That's why we're looking at all your feedback and also trying to implement ideas we've gathered from the community. But as we are a small team, it all takes a bit of time.

Originally posted by TooPoopie:

what's the actual coop experience other than queuing up for a wagon run?

Would you say that different player roles would make for a more co-op experience? So that each individual has more of a unique task and without their role you wouldn't survive the nights?

Originally posted by Buntkreuz:

The core rule there is, to provide a constantly rising challenge for players to combat.
STart easy, unlock meta upgrades, you feel ready for phase 2, then phase 3, then phase 4 and then if you are still powerful enough maybe active a few mission mutators to spice it up even more.

As I understand it, the difficulty of the game (amount of enemies, HP, damage, etc.) wouldn't depend on the difficulty you choose at the beginning, but rather on the players' progress so far?

Thanks for your feedback :)

No both.
For example in Darktide it works that you could tackle the highest difficulty, but it would be insanely hard to beat.
Instead you tackle a lower difficulty, level your character and receive new items to equip and buff your character, unlock new abilities and perks and ofcourse knowledge about the game.
With that you enter the next difficulty, get even better gear and level some more and so on.

Difficulty is like a fixed, linear way of progression. Character/player progression is a non linear way of progression (its dependent on player choices).

That allows a game to be far more flexible in terms of its challenges.

Another (but not exclusive) way of adding progression is by unlocking new choices and mechanics.
Like how Dead Cells and other similar games do it. You get more weapons that can appear, more abilities that can appear during a run and new modes, stuff to customize etc (like which items are allowed to appear).