Rogue Legends is more of an RNG fest than a roguelike (Critique)

[xSil3ntd34thx]

Everything is overtuned or simply lacking in impact. Being able to complete a run depends on not drawing a bad map/boss combo (e.g.: bloonarius spawning ddts all over the map right after pressing the start button or vortex being on a multi-track map) and drawing overpowered and impactful relics/temporary relics/monkeys.

Relics:

Some relics have cool ideas or which some achieve what they are supposed to do but thats only a small fraction of them all.
There are so many relics that have "buff + debuff" mentality in which mostly the relic just straight up cancels itself and is extremely niche to use. Some relics effects might even be entirely negligible by how little impact they have.
Relic rarity/upgrading also is either extremely busted or just completely useless altogether. Some relics are even already busted just in their common form.
All in all, relics currently are only to be considered if they are part of the overpowered category.


Rounds and natural income:

The rounds feel handcrafted to be rather annoying than challenging (also not random at all). Most rounds have bloonswarms with leads and purples mixed into them and the occasional camo bloons which quickly turns into a mess and is chaotic to handle. This ties in with the beyond overtuned natural income you generate by playing or even starting an encounter. You handcraftedly get so little cash that its just enough to sustain you into buying another one of your 4 rounder party monkeys without getting overwhelmed into oblivion by the sheer amount of mixed bloonswarms.
Expensive monkeys and upgrading party monkeys beyonds tier 3 where their prices spike is impossibly justifiable with how little cash you are able to generate, meaning you are once again limited in options and monkeys you can choose.
Heroes are only maybe useful for the first three or so bloon encounters, after that their slow leveling makes them just useless low single digit dps towers.
The scaling of encounters is also done very straight forward but poorly. Speed is extremely difficult to handle and should be either reduced or cut entirely since its annoying having bloons literally ignore my defenses on round one (of the encounter, not round "one" as in 1/X) just because I am unable to cover the entire map (because it either doesnt loop or is a multi track) or the monkeys simply not being able to connect their shots to high speed bloons.
Starting income is also very limiting and should maybe be raised significantely with the amount of encounters completed prior and the starting round advancing up after every encounter is also very discouraging of running more encounters entirely (Less income, more risk of loosing).


The maps:

The maps enforce taking the path of least resistance (least bloon encounters that cause scaling) if you atleast plan to reach the boss and have a standing chance. The encounter and event tiles dont feel spread out very well, which lets you end up with situations where you either: take a path with no encounters and no events or a path that adds like 13 encounters and some events (exaggerated extremely).
Its also difficult to get a grasp as to what awaits you on certain paths just by looking at the map. Additionally its also hard to see if there are any "legendary" spots on the map at all, because they are not even highlighted that visibly. Having to check the map, run all paths, count all encounters/events and search for potential legendary tiles already takes a good chunk of time. And after that taking into account the risk calculation of running more encounters or not ontop. Encounters giving a range of tokens can also add up significantly when only getting one token per encounter.
The shop itself features a lot of randomness too, with relics that mostly dont impact what my current party looks like at all. Sometimes the map also just puts two shops back to back on a single path which can be annoying.
The special event tiles are either total cakewalks or impossible to even get a common relic out of (ties in with round layouts, income, roll rng, relic impact, scaling, etc. ...)


The bosses:

Minibosses are bad (especially in early stages), having a global/large range tower is a must if you atleast want to attempt to beat one since you cant even place more monkeys because that is tied to the boss getting popped over and over again which again is impossible by having no way of constantly putting damage into it. The ability to gain income naturally is also limited and natural bloons pose no threat whatsoever.

Bosses themselves are fine in terms of HP and speed (maybe even a little on the easy side). Their effects on the other hand, as mentioned above, can make it impossible to beat them ending the run instantly.


The "Rogue Like" aspect:

Encounters having pre-seeded (and not re-randomized after loss) temporary relics and instas doesnt allow for retrying encounters all too well since you can generally tell if an encounter will be impossible or not after just loosing a try to rng.
The temporary relics themselves feel very unimpactful when unstacked.
The insta monkeys suffer from the lack of income whereas they are either entirely risky to invest into (via upgrading) or borderline unaffordable.
The rolls are weird and feel like they can range from a 0/0/0 glue gunner up to a 4/2/0 super monkey at any stage of the game/encounter which doesnt feel rewarding at all. The rolls are also too random, as in giving me support relics, even though my party doesnt have any support at all, or simply refusing to give me some form of camo detection/lead popping/whatever even though I am totally in need of said thing. Rerolling the reward choices doesnt help either since the range of what can be offered feels the same as the initial roll itself. Sometimes the rolls also end up being "only relics" even after multiple rerolls or "only instas" even after multiple rerolls. Having only 3 rewards offered with the sheer amount of possibilities and potential needs for the encounter makes it difficult to rely on it (and being the same rolls even after loss doesnt help it either).
Using campfires also feels pointless most of the time. Healing is a primary reason to use them. Upgrading a relic depends heavily on what it is, of which most are useless to consider upgrading. Mentoring a monkey is also not really helpful, especially when going beyond tier 3 (which ties into income/costs). Ontop of that a singular upgrade doesnt strike as useful and upgrading beyond tier 3 already doesnt (costs/income). Recruiting a new monkey suffers from the same randomness as the temporary relics and instas. Not being able to quit the recruiting menu to reconsider choosing another option instead is also very annoying if the draw isnt even useful.


The graphics/tiles:

In the style of ninja kiwi bloons art. Nothing to complain about here :D.


Suggestions/Points of interest:

-A lot, if not all, relics need reworks and buffs to have impact.
-Randomness in rolls like temporary relics/shop layouts/instas is just purely random without consideration of what the party currently is built around.
-Lack of choices after rolls.
-Encounter scaling, bloon speed especially.
-Stage boss, map and stage combos which are impossible to beat.
-Temporary relics need some buffs.
-Rerolling a choice selection should also slightly increase rarity chance and be more
random in relation to the previous/initial rolls.


Conclusion:

This type of game style for bloons is a cool idea and I really support it (having seen unofficial mods of it was intersting too), but in its currently unpolished and unbalanced state its not good at all. Having played many roguelikes before (and still playing most of them) makes me say that this one is extremely weighted towards luck and only a little on the skill side of things. Either you get the broken relics, good maps and a survivable stage end bosses or you can hit the reset run button immediately. You essentialy have very little control over what your run will look like and very little choice when attempting to get a run actually going. (outside of picking your starters and starter relics)

As of now, I wouldnt recommend the rogue legends dlc because it offers nothing new and interesting (with the way it is designed currently) about BTD6 and its parallels (battles, card storm, etc.), it simply feels like a many layered slotmachine with BTD6 attached to it.

[Demon Swords]

I also play alot of rogue-lites, but don't think a heavily luck / rng reliant Rogue-like is inherently bad. Rogue-likes are meant to be replayable and is usually done by a combination of: randomness (to keep runs unique and prevent you from using the exact same builds every time), an addicting game play loop (So you want to keep playing more), and a difficult highest difficulty (so you don't just win a few runs and stop all together.)

Considering your able to select your starting artifacts and from your hero have some control on starting monkeys, I don't think this game has too insanely high of Rng. You do need some duds to dilute the pool to prevent you from always getting the broken stuff, i think the temporary artifacts are a clear example of this. I think this game is too easy when you get all the artifacts that stack well (temporary or permanent.) At least for me, i want my games to be at least a little challenging that way success feels even more fulfilling.

I agree with some of your other conclusions, but I feel like you undervalue many aspects of the game mode that leads to a strong build, so I think your overestimating to what degree the issues need to be changed.

- I think mentoring monkeys is extremely useful, because some upgrades your going to get anyways, so you might as get that sweet medium to massive discount on that upgrade. You do need to hold back on enhance a bit, so your able to still play your most important monkey's off cool down and be able to play them when entering a new stage and having the round count partially reset. (You can also enhance some of your less important / boss fight only monkeys to the high tiers. In the boss fight your going to be able to start with over 20k, so no monkey will be unaffordable for at least 1, and saving money whenever is important.) I find it weird that you think we need more starting money, but also think the primary way to save money (mentoring monkey's) is not worth your time.

- I agree that the campfires, adding a monkey feature is pointless. (Even though I've beaten stage 5. I've only every pressed the button once, just to see how it works.) Your better off leaving the enlargement of your party to getting artifacts that add a monkey to your party then upgrading that artifact to get even more copies of that monkey added to your party.

I can agree that some artifacts are definitely too weak even if we need to dilute the pool (Cough, Cough, Sniper Exclusive artifact that actually lowers the sniper's average dps when common or rare), but I don't think there are as many useless ones as you insinuate. There are definitely ones that are pretty mediocre, but I believe some duds are need to dilute the pool so you don't always end up with insanely powerful builds (Unless you really want all the artifacts to be as strong as the broken ones causing the game to either be insanely easy or require the devs to find so other way to make the game harder.)

[Elmok]

Originally posted by Demon Swords:

I also play alot of rogue-lites, but don't think a heavily luck / rng reliant Rogue-like is inherently bad. Rogue-likes are meant to be replayable and is usually done by a combination of: randomness (to keep runs unique and prevent you from using the exact same builds every time), an addicting game play loop (So you want to keep playing more), and a difficult highest difficulty (so you don't just win a few runs and stop all together.)

Considering your able to select your starting artifacts and from your hero have some control on starting monkeys, I don't think this game has too insanely high of Rng. You do need some duds to dilute the pool to prevent you from always getting the broken stuff, i think the temporary artifacts are a clear example of this. I think this game is too easy when you get all the artifacts that stack well (temporary or permanent.) At least for me, i want my games to be at least a little challenging that way success feels even more fulfilling.

I agree with some of your other conclusions, but I feel like you undervalue many aspects of the game mode that leads to a strong build, so I think your overestimating to what degree the issues need to be changed.

- I think mentoring monkeys is extremely useful, because some upgrades your going to get anyways, so you might as get that sweet medium to massive discount on that upgrade. You do need to hold back on enhance a bit, so your able to still play your most important monkey's off cool down and be able to play them when entering a new stage and having the round count partially reset. (You can also enhance some of your less important / boss fight only monkeys to the high tiers. In the boss fight your going to be able to start with over 20k, so no monkey will be unaffordable for at least 1, and saving money whenever is important.) I find it weird that you think we need more starting money, but also think the primary way to save money (mentoring monkey's) is not worth your time.

- I agree that the campfires, adding a monkey feature is pointless. (Even though I've beaten stage 5. I've only every pressed the button once, just to see how it works.) Your better off leaving the enlargement of your party to getting artifacts that add a monkey to your party then upgrading that artifact to get even more copies of that monkey added to your party.

I can agree that some artifacts are definitely too weak even if we need to dilute the pool (Cough, Cough, Sniper Exclusive artifact that actually lowers the sniper's average dps when common or rare), but I don't think there are as many useless ones as you insinuate. There are definitely ones that are pretty mediocre, but I believe some duds are need to dilute the pool so you don't always end up with insanely powerful builds (Unless you really want all the artifacts to be as strong as the broken ones causing the game to either be insanely easy or require the devs to find so other way to make the game harder.)

-roguelikes/roguelites need some duds but most of the relics are duds
-right now the game has next to no mid range relics, they're either op or near duds
-most of the relics also don't open up new strategies or synergize with other relics

[Paiguy]

Great post, very much agree.

[xSil3ntd34thx]

Originally posted by Demon Swords:

I also play alot of rogue-lites, but don't think a heavily luck / rng reliant Rogue-like is inherently bad. Rogue-likes are meant to be replayable and is usually done by a combination of: randomness (to keep runs unique and prevent you from using the exact same builds every time), an addicting game play loop (So you want to keep playing more), and a difficult highest difficulty (so you don't just win a few runs and stop all together.)

I agree, but here, there can be so much rng reliance (boss at the end of stage + map, map layout and encounter amount and maps, when in an encounter drawing important instas or artifacts) that there is most of the time no given way of salvaging a run even by the brink of a singular life.

Originally posted by Demon Swords:

Considering your able to select your starting artifacts and from your hero have some control on starting monkeys, I don't think this game has too insanely high of Rng. You do need some duds to dilute the pool to prevent you from always getting the broken stuff, i think the temporary artifacts are a clear example of this. I think this game is too easy when you get all the artifacts that stack well (temporary or permanent.) At least for me, i want my games to be at least a little challenging that way success feels even more fulfilling.

The challenge is there, I see that, but if the game doesnt even provide baseline ability to go against said challenging setting its pretty much just a constant reset run situation. (like e.g.: a pity system where it detects like "oh, you have 0 camo towers in your party. maybe ill increase the odds of that insta draw happening by a little bit to grant you a fighting chance atleast", which could even just be like a 0/0/0 ninja) Like, dynamically forming parts of the run to become more possible to be beaten.

Originally posted by Demon Swords:

- I think mentoring monkeys is extremely useful, because some upgrades your going to get anyways, so you might as get that sweet medium to massive discount on that upgrade. You do need to hold back on enhance a bit, so your able to still play your most important monkey's off cool down and be able to play them when entering a new stage and having the round count partially reset. (You can also enhance some of your less important / boss fight only monkeys to the high tiers. In the boss fight your going to be able to start with over 20k, so no monkey will be unaffordable for at least 1, and saving money whenever is important.) I find it weird that you think we need more starting money, but also think the primary way to save money (mentoring monkey's) is not worth your time.

I rather think its hard upgrading monkeys since most of them often play a core role in simple encounters. Upgrading them to tier 3 shooting their price up by like 2k (exaggerated) for not much value againt encounter bloons feels devastating. This also is problematic when facing the low amount of income one gets, not only at the beginning of an encounter, but throughout the entire thing.
What I meant with having more starting cash is when clearing more and more encounters, the starting round advances by one (cutting one round of income) and the end round by three (possibly making it harder or more rng dependant (e.g.: DDT defense) to defeat). So I proposed to make it more worth buffing up the bloons by taking more and more encounters, but also to counterbalance said increase in difficulty by increasing starting cash, in a stage, with more and more encounters cleared.(so basically a buff to starting round cash with the amount of encounters cleared)
Upgrading monkeys also feels weird in a way of only being able to upgrade once where it ends up either only shaving 50$ off of your monkey or making them, as already mentioned, expensive with tiers higher than 3. (Primaries are a good exception to upgrading to tier 3 or even higher)

Originally posted by Demon Swords:

I agree that the campfires, adding a monkey feature is pointless. (Even though I've beaten stage 5. I've only every pressed the button once, just to see how it works.) Your better off leaving the enlargement of your party to getting artifacts that add a monkey to your party then upgrading that artifact to get even more copies of that monkey added to your party.

Yeah, this one is weird, as suggested, atleast give us the option to look at what this current camp fire offers as recruits and allow us to press the back button to maybe make a different choice instead if no presented monkey strikes us to build into and around.

Originally posted by Demon Swords:

I can agree that some artifacts are definitely too weak even if we need to dilute the pool (Cough, Cough, Sniper Exclusive artifact that actually lowers the sniper's average dps when common or rare), but I don't think there are as many useless ones as you insinuate. There are definitely ones that are pretty mediocre, but I believe some duds are need to dilute the pool so you don't always end up with insanely powerful builds (Unless you really want all the artifacts to be as strong as the broken ones causing the game to either be insanely easy or require the devs to find so other way to make the game harder.)

Ofcourse there have to be duds in any type of possible selection choice, but in this case a good chunk of the artifacts feel like "I am here, to be here" or are "I do this, but break that instead", where the debuff to "that" simply cancels or even overshadows the buff when said artifact is not in a rare/legendary state. And even if an artifact doesnt feature any debuffs, most of those end up having such a miniscule impact on the whole setting that they could be ignored entirely. (So, feeling extremely overtuned)

[xSil3ntd34thx]

Originally posted by Elmok:

-Most of the artifacts also don't open up new strategies or synergize with other artifacts

This, honestly.