Endless Mode /// Edit: There will be different Endless modes.

[Ham]

I think what most people likely wanted was an endlessly increasing challenge, which you implemented - but without upgrades (even if they are drastically more costly or limited in some way) it feels largely pointless, as you are no longer making any meaningful gameplay decisions.

Please implement some form of progression, like in the normal gameplay, but balanced for endless mode. As it stands, you can mostly just AFK in the center of the map with your end game build and wait for the stat scaling to eventually catch up to you and kill you.

Suggestion: Implement some limited but still meaningful way to improve your character the longer the time goes - whether after certain boss kills, time benchmarks, or kill counts - perhaps drastically increase the cost of upgrades/rerolling selections so the player can't possibly outscale the content indefinitely.

Edit: Also, the meta-progression rewards for endless mode are not commensurate with the amount of time invested - please scale them up/add variety, so they at least match up with what you would get playing a regular run per amount of time invested.

Edit Edit: The Crux upgrades also feel incredibly tame, for a game with so much spectacle. I would suggest perhaps reducing the number of Crux upgrades, but making them much more noticeable/impactful. Nobody wants a 2.5% Crux aura radius increase, or a 10 damage Crux attack.

Loved the game otherwise, great work. A lot of good content for the price.

[A-Space-Turkey]

The dev has stated that they intend to create different game modes which includes an endless mode with shops. The intent of the current endless mode is to see how the build you make during the first 16 levels fairs with an increasing challenge without the shop. i.e. not actually "endless", more "see when it ends". :)

Other than that everything else you've mentioned was an intentional choice made by the dev and may or may not be changed.

[Dark Jay Studio]

Thanks for the feedback!

As A-Space-Turkey mentioned, there will be different types of Endless modes in the future.

A lot of players specifically wanted a way to test the absolute limits of their builds. The idea behind the current Endless mode is that you spend the first 15 waves building your character, and then you see how far that finished build can actually go and how strong it really is.

What you're describing is closer to another type of Endless mode, where waves continue indefinitely and you keep choosing upgrades, or a more traditional survivor-like mode without fixed waves, where new upgrades appear every few minutes. I definitely want to add other modes in the future.

Regarding the meta-progression rewards, Endless can currently give you around 10,000-100,000 Ashes and over 30-107 Vows. The chest also gives more Shards the longer you wait before collecting it, potentially giving you several thousand.

For comparison, an average Inferno run gives around 1,500 Ashes, 24 Vows and 400 Shards, so a good Endless run can already provide significantly more rewards. Of course, how much you earn depends heavily on your build and how long you survive.

Endless mode also makes it much easier to complete the final achievement for defeating 300,000 enemies. This won't matter to everyone, but quite a few players were waiting for a mode like this specifically so they wouldn't have to grind that achievement through regular runs.

Regarding the Crux upgrades, one important thing to keep in mind is that Crux Power multiplies the stats you choose. So, for example, a stat with 5% Crux Power will effectively appear around 20x smaller before that multiplier is applied. That can make some of the individual upgrade numbers look much less impactful than they actually are in the final calculation.

I'm really glad you enjoyed the game overall!

[k1lr0y p_q]

I think current endless mode is quite good for testing builds and completing achievement for 300 000 kills.
But It's not so good for leaderboard.
Your run continues until you start getting one-shots.
So you must to build your templar for armor cap, dodge cap, then some vampirism and then as much HP as you can.
DPS and weapons don't matter as much as your survivability.
DPS only helps to clear waves faster so your FPS wouldn't drop to zero, so the game wouldn't crash (fatal error).

[ywl]

Originally posted by k1lr0y p_q:

I think current endless mode is quite good for testing builds and completing achievement for 300 000 kills.
But It's not so good for leaderboard.

Still, I wonder how people manage to get 30m+ points.
I don't know if this is just a lot of bad luck, bad rng, but somehow - everything seems weaker now.

[Ham]

Originally posted by Dark Jay Studio:

Thanks for the feedback!

As A-Space-Turkey mentioned, there will be different types of Endless modes in the future.

A lot of players specifically wanted a way to test the absolute limits of their builds. The idea behind the current Endless mode is that you spend the first 15 waves building your character, and then you see how far that finished build can actually go and how strong it really is.

What you're describing is closer to another type of Endless mode, where waves continue indefinitely and you keep choosing upgrades, or a more traditional survivor-like mode without fixed waves, where new upgrades appear every few minutes. I definitely want to add other modes in the future.

Regarding the meta-progression rewards, Endless can currently give you around 10,000-100,000 Ashes and over 30-107 Vows. The chest also gives more Shards the longer you wait before collecting it, potentially giving you several thousand.

For comparison, an average Inferno run gives around 1,500 Ashes, 24 Vows and 400 Shards, so a good Endless run can already provide significantly more rewards. Of course, how much you earn depends heavily on your build and how long you survive.

Endless mode also makes it much easier to complete the final achievement for defeating 300,000 enemies. This won't matter to everyone, but quite a few players were waiting for a mode like this specifically so they wouldn't have to grind that achievement through regular runs.

Regarding the Crux upgrades, one important thing to keep in mind is that Crux Power multiplies the stats you choose. So, for example, a stat with 5% Crux Power will effectively appear around 20x smaller before that multiplier is applied. That can make some of the individual upgrade numbers look much less impactful than they actually are in the final calculation.

I'm really glad you enjoyed the game overall!

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I had not realized that the chests/rewards inside of endless mode scaled with the time you spent inside before opening them - I always opened them at the start of the mode, like I would usually do in a regular run.

Knowing that now, I think some sort of indicator/PSA for endless mode to alert players to that fact would be in order, since the rest of the game trains you to pop chests/finish events as soon as possible. The way the events/chest are currently presented seems as though they are a reward for finishing a regular run, before you really dive into the endless waves.

It also isn't super clear if you are receiving any other rewards while doing endless (ashes, etc), as only the rewards from killing bosses (vows?) pop up and notify you after doing them. Perhaps some sort of toggled resource tally option?

[Dark Jay Studio]

Thanks for feedback.
I will add an info about the chest in Endless description. Ashes you receive by killing demons, I have in my todo list to add all resources do the Codex. For Vowes there is a notification.