I really enjoy the solo content, but some of the design choices boggle my mind.
Tavern
Does it have to be so bad? I have had multiple runs where none of the options given in the tavern were of any use. And then it’s behind a loading screen and you have to wait for minions to populate the board…
Treasures
Especially on heroic mode, when you roll bad treasures you’re pretty much forced to restart a run.
Suggestions
Players start a run with a pool of coins.
With these coins they can:
- Buy a starting treasure (instead of having to complete the first boss. Treasures are unlocked by encountering them in a run. Their price vary according to their power).
- Re-roll the groups of cards to add to their deck.
- Remove cards from their deck.
And after defeating a boss, players get more coins to spend. The effects applied by the cards in the tavern could be bought with coins and applied in various ways (depending on how much rng would make sense. Varying effects available / varying cost of effects / varying cards available from the deck to apply effects on).
So the player could buy a cheap treasure at the start of the run with the aim to exert a bit more control over what gets added to their deck, or go for a powerful treasure and build on that synergy.
RNG can be fun, but currently some of the elements are just more frustrating than anything else.
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I agree with the ideia of having a secondary currency for the adventure.
Create an arbitrary ‘coins’ currency that you are rewarded by every boss defeat and give options to use the coins.
Some examples that you said: Reroll Tavern hand card options, Reroll bucket of cards, Reroll treasure options, etc…
And of course they could give an option for an Extra life if you lose a run.
The extra decks, treasures and hero powers could be unlocked using the coins too.
In general: Make losing runs more rewarding, and less punishing. I’ll just add some stuff that games with similar difficulty curves have done:
Binding of Isaac: Quick reset.
Binding of Isaac: Nearly every Treasure is worth picking up (though Cursed Eye and The Lost can still go f*** themselves)
Invisible, Inc: Level variety. I get that procedural gen is not a thing you can really do with HS, but SOMETHING to clear up the monotony that is playing the same small handful of early bosses ad infinitum.
FTL: More build options that aren’t siloed into buckets/treasures which usually have an obvious pick. “Get Deathrattle totem, take Deathrattle minions unless you need to fix your curve or removal a bit” is not strategy I find deep or rewarding.
Dead Cells/Darkest Dungeon: RPG elements. Basically, like the Invisible Inc. example, SOMETHING to make runs where you fight the same 5-6 easy bosses then get curb stomped by a bad draw, bad picks, etc…, not seem like a waste of time.
The currency stuff will definitely help with any runs that you lose. Even if you lose, you still get currency to use into your next runs.
The rerolls and extra life can definitely reduce frustations of bad pick and bad draws.
In fact, losing a run because of a bad draw is the worst thing. You can’t afford to make a creative deck with a creative strategy, because a single bad draw means you lose everything.
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Yeah, I’d consider the currency idea to be a good “RPG element” solution. Also, maybe opening up a Tavern where you can permanently alter a starting deck, after you gain enough “XP”?
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I can see this working well. You having a bad starting deck and using currency to improve it. They can make all kinds of upgrades with this logic.
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You may have touched on this by “quick reset” – After a certain number of failed runs that force me to start from the first boss, I would like one “extra life” where I have the option to only fall back by 2 bosses and have a second chance to complete the run with the deck I’ve built. The deck additions that I received between the 2 bosses can be taken away and automatically added as I beat the boss again. If I don’t like the deck and want to start from boss 1 again, I could.
2 Likes
Not really, though I like your idea.
By “quick reset”, I mean a button on the menu that lets you just quit a run and return to the anomaly/level screen, rather than having to got through the menus/tavern, go into a match, and concede. Binding of Isaac has a fast reset option to mitigate the fact that lots of abilities you can pick up are not very good, after you’ve progressed through the game.
You’re talking about what I’d call “Save points”. Basically, the notion that 1 death doesn’t cost you a run. And I like the idea.
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I dunno why they still did not implemented a ‘continue’ system, where every Tavern you reach, you get an ‘extra life’.
The ‘you lose once, you lose your deck’ is the reason people don’t pick fun treasures or creative strategies.
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