[Suggestion] - Improvement Ideas for Rogue Legends

[DASH.RABBIT]

So I've been trying out the Rogue Legends mode and, well, I liked the preview enough to get the full mode a try and I really appreciate that that the IAPs barely affect it, so I definitely think it has potential. However... the balancing is ROUGH. Here's a few things I think could significantly change it for the better:

• Retries should be free for all areas. Having to skip a level already costs a heart to begin with, and failing a level after spending so much time on a run is too punishing. The least we could get is the ability to experiment with our party freely. Camps may need to restore less hearts to compensate.
  
  
• Severely reduce or outright remove several of the punishments for the artifacts. For example, the uncommon sniper monkey relic overall reduces their DPS while also making it less reliable.
  
  
• Reduce the requirements for miniboss kills (and maybe race times? I'm not too familiar with that game mode), as even with a good kit for dealing with the boss, it's often barely enough to even get a common relic.
  
  
• Either some serious wave rebalancing, or a way to access camo lead and camo purple answers more reliably. Some heroes get hard countered as early as the first battle (base Gwen), and DDTs are often run enders for all the wrong reasons, less due to a lack of skill and moreso simply never having the tools to combat them.
  
  
• Difficulty levels, beyond just CHIMPS. The current version could already easily be considered the hard mode, so a lot of these changes could be reworked into difficulty settings. Perhaps take a cue from Hades and make several of these toggleable knobs the players can turn, with each knob increasing the difficulty in a unique way, but also increasing the...
  
  
• REWARDS. Even failed runs should give a little something. Incentivize getting better with a little taste of what lies at the end.

That's all I have to say so far. Anyone else is welcome to chime in!

[Paiguy]

The biggest pain point for me that I've brought up in other threads is the time commitment. Everything takes so long and runs go on forever so it feels incredibly punishing when you lose.

Which ties into your rewards thing as well. For a roguelite mode there is almost nothing that actually carries over to make future runs easier which is very weird. The only thing I've really seen is extracting a relic but I honestly don't think that's super powerful considering your limited relic slots on initial deployment? So I'm blasting away 3 to 4 hours in a failed run and then get nothing at the end unless I intentionally gimped myself by extracting an important relic earlier (and this had to be done ahead of time because if I held on to the relic hoping to make the next stage easier it's gone when you lose)

[Mumeiro]

Even if it was a currency outside of token and cash that we could use on upgrades like the upgrades from BTD5 for example, attack speed, more hearts, more damage, lessening MOAB health, etc.

Something that just helps your next run a little bit would be a nice addition. Though I must admit I also just kinda suck at these types of games lmao.

[ankvangoro]

Originally posted by Paiguy:

The biggest pain point for me that I've brought up in other threads is the time commitment. Everything takes so long and runs go on forever so it feels incredibly punishing when you lose.

Which ties into your rewards thing as well. For a roguelite mode there is almost nothing that actually carries over to make future runs easier which is very weird. The only thing I've really seen is extracting a relic but I honestly don't think that's super powerful considering your limited relic slots on initial deployment? So I'm blasting away 3 to 4 hours in a failed run and then get nothing at the end unless I intentionally gimped myself by extracting an important relic earlier (and this had to be done ahead of time because if I held on to the relic hoping to make the next stage easier it's gone when you lose)

yeah, the reward after beating stage is not rewarding, not make the next run more easy/enjoyable.

[:)]

I really don't know how they messed up relics so bad. There are, maybe, 3 good relics. The one that makes all projectiles ricochet, and the one that makes burning bloons explode are the only interesting ones. They literally had whole CATALOG of relics to pulls from the CT event. CT relics are wayy stronger (which is good) and so much more fun to use. Making almost all relic buffs be minor percentile buffs is so lame. It's impossible to 'break' the game, which is VERY FUN. Wanna know how much the LEGENDARY quickening buff increases attack speed?!?! 25%. one quarter, wow. not very legendary. Minimum, should be 100%

[Valthejean]

Definitely agree with a lot of what's been said in this thread. There also just needs to be some rebalance, both with artifacts and certain heroes/perks. For example, the race tiles are just not worth doing if you take a hero like Benjamen. You can deal with them later once you have enough buffs to your party without Benjamen, but the game mode should be fun and playable for any hero choice.

Outside of that, they really need to make it so you go back to the tile map after completing a tile, instead of sending you back to the main menu. I don't know why it does that.

[john_9a]

1 Shorter game overall.
2 Rewards for playing the game.
3 Retry without complete loss
4 More Tower Progression and Tower selection control by player.
5 Difficulty Options - Easier game- less rewards. Harder game -more reward. etc.

Thanks for the Input Thread - great idea to create it!

[wistfulplague]

Note i have not bought it yet but love rogue likes. It seems like there are 2 major parts that need adjustments that are just about tying a new mode. The game will need more ways for you to be able to properly customize your deck and things that can properly have synergy with each other.

For just having more customization why not go with the style of system used by auto battler deck builders. What if people got a set amount of "points" to start with and then they get to pick monkeys and start upgrades for them. Then through out the run you get more points to pick new monkeys or buy more starting upgrades for you party. It would make it much easier for people to get support options they want and have the needed dmg types or counters. With this you can also keep the rng events to add monkeys to party or plan around relics.

The other major thing that a rogue like will need is diversity of synergy's. Replay-ability will kinda live or die based on how many options the player can use or plan for. Most games will have at least 1 build per dmg type along with status effects. Beyond some basics just having some good options to buff a tower type like magic or water there could be something to give them special effects. Just some examples like all support buildings can place 1 engineer sentry or all magic monkeys count for upgrades that buff a specific monkey (example of the ninja and druids upgraded that stack on each other). Then just ad some more that give interesting stats (spread down in interesting) and make sure that the relics are all good or at least offer a substantial upside if they have a downside (the energy relics in slay the spire are good examples).

[Highborne]

Originally posted by :):

I really don't know how they messed up relics so bad. There are, maybe, 3 good relics. The one that makes all projectiles ricochet, and the one that makes burning bloons explode are the only interesting ones. They literally had whole CATALOG of relics to pulls from the CT event. CT relics are wayy stronger (which is good) and so much more fun to use. Making almost all relic buffs be minor percentile buffs is so lame. It's impossible to 'break' the game, which is VERY FUN. Wanna know how much the LEGENDARY quickening buff increases attack speed?!?! 25%. one quarter, wow. not very legendary. Minimum, should be 100%

Non rogue-like devs trying to make a rogue-like game, balance is going to be way off either direction usually. It takes serious iteration to make the games fun, but with such long "games" of BTD6 Rogue Legends, it should heavily lean into player friendly/power else it feels like a giant kick in the nuts if you die to stupid unavoidable ♥♥♥♥.

[Rodj71]

I agree with every one of the points raised by you all. The mode is a great idea, but needs a lot of work. I have tried with 6 different heroes, all different load outs, and still not able to get an end of stage 1 boss beaten. One of the main issues I am having are the increased cost of buying monkey's upgrades - why could they not just keep the costs of tier increases the same as in the base game? Failing right at the end of the last round is a common thing for me in this too, which gets a bit much repeatedly. I hope they take a good long look at this mode and listen to what we're all saying and make some good changes.