Anyone else annoyed by the way prices increase?

[Todo]

I was just trying to upgrade to the miner, I got the exact amount of gold I needed from the last time I saw the upgrade but, of course, it's now 10 gold higher. And I don't even have anything to invest the money in now, besides magic stuff (not upgrading that much because I like the direct combat characters much more.)
But I can't even figure out why they would want to do that from a design sense. The game promotes your repeated death. The only times I notice the rising prices are when they're annoying the crap out of me. The price of death is already pretty high (losing a potentially great heir to pick 3 random ones, having to spend all of your gold instead of gathering more, losing progress in the castle if you didn't lock it.) So why is it even there?

[Genghis Tron]

It is slightly annoying. I noticed this in the demo, so my advice is to buy the REALLY expensive stuff as early as you can so it's much cheaper, then you can pump more into your stats.

[mercenaryai]

Yep. Price increase is really annoying, especially when you cannot afford any useful upgrade (lacing 10-20gp) and have to give everything to Charon.

[ArmoredCore]

引用自 Protoman：

I was just trying to upgrade to the miner, I got the exact amount of gold I needed from the last time I saw the upgrade but, of course, it's now 10 gold higher. And I don't even have anything to invest the money in now, besides magic stuff (not upgrading that much because I like the direct combat characters much more.)
But I can't even figure out why they would want to do that from a design sense. The game promotes your repeated death. The only times I notice the rising prices are when they're annoying the crap out of me. The price of death is already pretty high (losing a potentially great heir to pick 3 random ones, having to spend all of your gold instead of gathering more, losing progress in the castle if you didn't lock it.) So why is it even there?

So I dunno about you but this pricing thing kinda reminds me of the Dark/Demon Souls games. As you level your stats n such the price goes up so you cant be a UBER death machine that maxes everying. You kinda have to spec the way you want to play your character.

[Zind]

As you buy upgrades/equipement, you become stronger, able to explore a larger portion of the map, and earn a LOT more money per run (on average).
During the very first runs, a good session will net you about 1000g. After a while it'll be more like 4000/5000g. If the prices didn't increase, you would be able to buy 10+ upgrades after each run, which would be absurd. The progress would be corrugated and overly easy, which is obviously not what this game aims to be.
The prices increase makes perfect sense to me.

[Caerith]

I'm considering deleting my save and starting over because of it. (Note: this isn't a whine or a rage or whatever.) Early on, I made a point of spending as much gold as possible so as not to waste it on Charon, and I expanded my manor left first then right. The result is that I was like level 18, with buffed MP and stuff, when I finally discovered the trait that gets you more gold. Next time, I'm just going to make a beeline for gold+ and get it while it's relatively inexpensive, because it'll make everything else easier.

[ARF]

It has to increase or else you will be able to buy every single upgrade without ever needing to leave the first area. You get way stronger the more you buy so that enables you to obtain more gold.

[Nifty Nades of A]

引用自 Zind：

As you buy upgrades/equipement, you become stronger, able to explore a larger portion of the map, and earn a LOT more money per run (on average).
During the very first runs, a good session will net you about 1000g. After a while it'll be more like 4000/5000g. If the prices didn't increase, you would be able to buy 10+ upgrades after each run, which would be absurd. The progress would be corrugated and overly easy, which is obviously not what this game aims to be.
The prices increase makes perfect sense to me.

引用自 ARF：

It has to increase or else you will be able to buy every single upgrade without ever needing to leave the first area. You get way stronger the more you buy so that enables you to obtain more gold.

That's why the later upgrades cost more than the earlier ones, doesn't justify increasing the price of an individual upgrade IMO.

[mercenaryai]

Zind, if you can get around 1000g for your first run, you are likely a skilled player. My runs net me around 150g on average - which is not enough to buy anything except for minor hp upgrades, which would make it even harder to unlock good upgrades later. Few times I got lucky enough to find some chests and survive until ~500g, but it's rare. Because of the system, which currently discourages from buying anything other than class upgrades, plus Charon, at the moment I am able to buy an upgrade once every ~5-7 runs. This wastes my time as a player, undermines game's promise of "get stronger with every run".

So while I understand your point and agree with its logic, I ask that you also try to look at it from the perspective of more casual players, who naturally will rely more on upgrades and less on natural reflexes / player skill during early game.
I do not think unskilled players like me should be able to "buy" their way to beating the game - no, we should increase the skill to do that. But I'm speaking specifically about early game, and so far it's difficulty curve is "♥♥♥♥ you, only the hardcore will get past this firewall to enjoy the game". I find this difficulty curve frustrating.

P.S. The "you need to plan ahead" thing partially does not work because there's no visible upgrade tree you can use to plan. Caerith's comment is a good example of the problem.
P.P.S. Will do some more runs. Hope it gets easier with time.

[Oneironaut]

This game is certainly more skill-based than the amount of upgrades would lead you to believe. Normally in this a game with this many different things to buy you can just put in enough time to get every upgrade and then have a relatively easy time beating the game.

Charon taking all of your money means you have to make enough to buy an upgrade in a single run, and that amount can get pretty expensive. I consider myself a decent player and I'm starting to worry as the cheapest upgrades available to me are around 1500 right now. I wonder if it will be possible to max out all of the skills. I imagine some would cost over 10,000 towards the end.

I don't necessarily thing this is a bad thing. It's nice to have an RPG with lots of levelling that doesn't completely remove skill from the equation.

--------

Just counted the skills on the tree. There are 506 of them. I doesn't look like I'll be unlocking any more skills, so I think that's the final count. Each skill point you buy seems to increase the cost of all other skill points by 10 gold. 506*10 is 5060, so the most expensive skills will be whatever their base cost is +5060. So far the most expensive one I've seen started out around 5000, but I'm guessing the 75th rank of +health could be higher.

[Caerith]

There are three gold-base skills I know of: Miner class (gets 30% more gold), the gold passive (+10% per level), and the Charon discount (level 1 lets you keep 6% of your gold). Charon is two towers to the left, Miner and gold passive are two towers to the right. I think you need to get two skills in a tower to unlock the next one? I'm sure someone can get back to you with specifics, but I hope this is enough for you get started in that direction.

[Todo]

It's not the fact that the prices increase, but how they increase. If it were every time you buy something, like with dark souls leveling, I would be fine with it. As it is, if you die without getting enough money to buy something (pretty common mid-game) your character raised the prices without contributing anything in the long run. That's BS.

[Zind]

If it's your first time playing the game, yes, you'll most likely get f*cked because you don't know what the enemies do / how to deal with them. Unless you're already familiar with this kind of game.
With time, you will very quickly be able to recognize enemies / room patterns (they're not entirely randomized, but rather drawn from a pool of pre-arranged rooms) and adjust to them. It might take some time but I definitely don't think the game is made only for "hardcore" gamers.
I consider myself a casual too, but I played through the demo and several Castlevania games before (which are easier but require the same mechanics).
I have just beaten the 3rd boss and I wouldn't be surprised if several people finish the game today.

On another note, I don't really advise people to try and "plan ahead" for their expenses.
At the start, I only bought upgrades related to physical attacks, since archmages and the fire shield received considerable nerfs after the demo (which they deserved, but it might be a bit overdone). And now, I find myself coming back to buy magic-related upgrades because I've unlocked 2 very powerful magic classes. Every stat seems useful honestly.
On top of that, if you wanted to plan ahead a specific and optimized path, you'd need to know the entire upgrades tree + which pieces of equipment / runes have high compatibility with your build, which would be a huge spoiler. Some people may not mind that, but that would certainly undermine my enjoyment of the game.

[Gibbs]

引用自 Temple：

I'd like to see the fastest route to the more gold skill without the spoiler of seeing the entire castle.

Smithy, Health up, Upgrade Knight, Enchantress, Upgrade Mage, Unlock Miner, Gold Gain Up.

Not 100% sure if you need Upgrade Knight.

[SadClown]

the price going up seems like it's more annoying early on then later, you start building up a lot of money per run.

[Caerith]

引用自 Zind：

On top of that, if you wanted to plan ahead a specific and optimized path, you'd need to know the entire upgrades tree + which pieces of equipment / runes have high compatibility with your build, which would be a huge spoiler. Some people may not mind that, but that would certainly undermine my enjoyment of the game.

I agree about not planning a route or spoiling yourself on the skill tree, but a lot of people seem to be having money issues and the gold skill does come fairly early on if you know where to look.