Really fun concept but worried about how characters/skills are structured

[Sombrero]

I really love the game so far. Characters are fun and varied, the combat feels amazing (probably the best of the genre if we are being honest) but I have a pretty big concern regarding replayability when it comes to the final game.

Working from what we can guess will be added (since we don't know about what is not announced, obviously) we can expect additional heroes (5 most likely) a couple of new power-ups per character and potentially new magical object. And also 2 new maps.

The thing is that currently the game is designed around fairly rigid character in terms of "build making". Each character has a predetermined moveset that you can't modify much (basically unlock a secondary ultimate to choose from and some starting powers can slightly adjust your gameplay but it's relatively minor). That's fun at first but after a few runs it starts to feel pretty same-y.

What gives replay-value to roguelikes is that often times you get random combinations of skills and or power-ups that are so over the top that your runs start to have some unique flavour to it.

If you take the example of roguelike with random weapons/skillsets (like Dead Cells, Skul and so on) obviously depending on what you find your run will have a very different playstyle. If you take the example of roguelike with random powers on top of predetermined movesets like Hades or Risk of Rain (1 and 2 for that matters) they often have ridiculously strong combinations that make the game fun and very explosive.

Now I'm not asking for characters to become over the top and godlike by the end of a run BUT I think there's something missing. Sure it's fun to cast 6 power moves with Melusine in the span of 3 seconds but at the end of the day I'm just re-using the same power spell over and over with the same basic effect. I'm not zipping across the map sending a million projectiles everywhere in a flurry of explosion or some random stuff that other games have. From one run to the other maybe I'll have the ability to only use power 4 times but also apply vulnerable at the same time in the process. Technically it's different, sure, but is it different enough to be fun? Honestly no.

At the moment it feels like the characters are meant to be played at level 5 with a bunch of powers but you start the run with a super-nerfed character and work your way to getting back what they are missing. It doesn't feel like you start with a "normal" character that gets strongers. You start with the boring neutered toon that slowly but surely gets at its intended power level. It feels a bit backwards and as a consequence from run to run you feel pretty similar just with tiny variations.

So sure in the end we'll have 11-ish (maybe more, who knows, I kinda doubt it) characters and you can argue that if you keep playing with random toons it will feel less repetitive. But I can also tell you that I don't want to feel "forced" to play characters I don't like just to try my best to not get burned out with the game either.

As is, playing the same couple of characters over and over feel repetitive a lot faster than any other roguelike where you play the same starting archetype. I never felt that quickly in the same patterns in Hades when using the same weapon over and over (even during its very first early access with very little content) and same goes for games like Risk of Rain 2. That game has very few skills per character and you end up with the same most of the time (your favourites basically) but the items you get during a run make you so much stronger and spicier than at the start your runs don't feel same-y and even when they do you still have fun, because it's just fun.

Hopefully you already have plans for this to add some other layer of power-up/spicy stuff there's quite a few hidden options in the menus in the collection part that could suggest something like that so I'm optimistic. I'd hate to be bored with the game so fast when you made such a fun combat system, cool characters and enemies in a pretty unique setting. You have everything to make an amazing roguelike, it just needs not to feel overly repetitive after just a couple of hours. (And I really don't think the low amount of content of the early access is the issue here, I think it's the 5 levels, few power-ups with low impact that is mostly at fault).

[Anxodia]

I agree 100% to everything that you said.

[Lavan]

Completely agree. Really feels more like a Diablo style game than a rogue-like, most of the upgrades are basically just extra damage or health, very few actually change anything about how you play

[crimson_d-ark]

I think the best way to alleviate the skill issue, is Risk of Rain 2 style of having further unlocks you do achievements for, that change the core gameplay of a certain hero. This could also give them an excuse to create funny/weird inverses on some of the current hero's and their themes.

However, it is very early in this games production, so I'm not super worried about this until we get to that third update per their road map.

[Kites]

Agreed

[ILikeBirds]

Originally posted by Sombrero:

I really love the game so far. Characters are fun and varied, the combat feels amazing (probably the best of the genre if we are being honest) but I have a pretty big concern regarding replayability when it comes to the final game.

Working from what we can guess will be added (since we don't know about what is not announced, obviously) we can expect additional heroes (5 most likely) a couple of new power-ups per character and potentially new magical object. And also 2 new maps.

The thing is that currently the game is designed around fairly rigid character in terms of "build making". Each character has a predetermined moveset that you can't modify much (basically unlock a secondary ultimate to choose from and some starting powers can slightly adjust your gameplay but it's relatively minor). That's fun at first but after a few runs it starts to feel pretty same-y.

What gives replay-value to roguelikes is that often times you get random combinations of skills and or power-ups that are so over the top that your runs start to have some unique flavour to it.

If you take the example of roguelike with random weapons/skillsets (like Dead Cells, Skul and so on) obviously depending on what you find your run will have a very different playstyle. If you take the example of roguelike with random powers on top of predetermined movesets like Hades or Risk of Rain (1 and 2 for that matters) they often have ridiculously strong combinations that make the game fun and very explosive.

Now I'm not asking for characters to become over the top and godlike by the end of a run BUT I think there's something missing. Sure it's fun to cast 6 power moves with Melusine in the span of 3 seconds but at the end of the day I'm just re-using the same power spell over and over with the same basic effect. I'm not zipping across the map sending a million projectiles everywhere in a flurry of explosion or some random stuff that other games have. From one run to the other maybe I'll have the ability to only use power 4 times but also apply vulnerable at the same time in the process. Technically it's different, sure, but is it different enough to be fun? Honestly no.

At the moment it feels like the characters are meant to be played at level 5 with a bunch of powers but you start the run with a super-nerfed character and work your way to getting back what they are missing. It doesn't feel like you start with a "normal" character that gets strongers. You start with the boring neutered toon that slowly but surely gets at its intended power level. It feels a bit backwards and as a consequence from run to run you feel pretty similar just with tiny variations.

So sure in the end we'll have 11-ish (maybe more, who knows, I kinda doubt it) characters and you can argue that if you keep playing with random toons it will feel less repetitive. But I can also tell you that I don't want to feel "forced" to play characters I don't like just to try my best to not get burned out with the game either.

As is, playing the same couple of characters over and over feel repetitive a lot faster than any other roguelike where you play the same starting archetype. I never felt that quickly in the same patterns in Hades when using the same weapon over and over (even during its very first early access with very little content) and same goes for games like Risk of Rain 2. That game has very few skills per character and you end up with the same most of the time (your favourites basically) but the items you get during a run make you so much stronger and spicier than at the start your runs don't feel same-y and even when they do you still have fun, because it's just fun.

Hopefully you already have plans for this to add some other layer of power-up/spicy stuff there's quite a few hidden options in the menus in the collection part that could suggest something like that so I'm optimistic. I'd hate to be bored with the game so fast when you made such a fun combat system, cool characters and enemies in a pretty unique setting. You have everything to make an amazing roguelike, it just needs not to feel overly repetitive after just a couple of hours. (And I really don't think the low amount of content of the early access is the issue here, I think it's the 5 levels, few power-ups with low impact that is mostly at fault).

By the time it is fully released, the game will have three chapters, or levels. So, in each chapter, you'll level up your character four or five times, unlocking a slew of new skills. If we take this early access release as the basis for every chapter, a single run in this roguelike might be 75 minutes long with a total of fifteen character upgrades.

[Xanabanana]

Right now we're capped at level 5- I will not be surprised if things become crazier once zone 2/3 are out and we probably go to level 10 or so.

You have valid concerns, just I'm a bit skeptical that we're seeing the full depth of the characters at the moment. If it's still like this as the extra zones are added, yes it could be an issue.

[Bum]

This is killsquad all over again. Literally same concept. People get hyped at the begining, and then they fail to deliver. And if you look at the roadmap nothing is planned outside of 1 more map and character and then it's end game. in a month this game is empty.

[Sombrero]

Originally posted by Xanabanana:

Right now we're capped at level 5- I will not be surprised if things become crazier once zone 2/3 are out and we probably go to level 10 or so.

You have valid concerns, just I'm a bit skeptical that we're seeing the full depth of the characters at the moment. If it's still like this as the extra zones are added, yes it could be an issue.

I'm convinced we haven't seen everything because there's "Final" upgrades that we don't have access to that are in the unlockable UI. Also in the compendium we only have Heroes and Magical objects and are missing 4 sections so it's realistic to expect at least one of the 4 to be gamemplay upgrades or something (the others could simply be like a compendium of enemies, achievements and so on that don't necessarily are unlockables).

If this feeling of not having too much impact is only during chapter 1 then cool, but the game doesn't have room for many new upgrades in all honesty.