Discussion about the Roguelike Dungeon

1: When it was announced, I was expecting a satisfying amount of effort to be put into it. Which would be about adding at least 25% more castle without new assets in that portion of the castle, which is obviously much less than 25% of the whole game.

2: I was extremely interested. Drooling on the floor interested. Now I'm skeptical because I've noticed since BS's kickstarter, there are more and more games tagging themselves as 'roguelikes' which are frankly sad excuses of the tag. I mean I don't think IGA or his team has the intention of making a half-assed game mode. But I worry that their impression of what makes the roguelike people want will be skewed based on all the bad examples out there, and they will make an honest effort to replicate something mediocre to begin with.

3: Infinite, or 100, or 1000. none of these 5-10 floor roguelites please.

4: reskins and main game bosses. Maybe with modifiers like diablo style elites or something.

5: I prefer the start at level 1 with no advantages thing. If you unlock anything, maybe optional things that aren't actually power upgrades, just new options like playable characters that are not supposed to be better or worse. Or maybe start with an equally balanced weapon or something.

6: You already kinda asked this in #2. But for the part you didn't answer.

One of the things I like about roguelikes (moreso than roguelites, and yes this will be a roguelite obviously, though people who don't actually PLAY them wont know this, this is ok, I like both if done well) is randomness... Which means alot more than just 60 pre-set rooms that are scattered around like a jigsaw puzzle. What I miss from the older roguelikes over the newer ones is more emphasis on random excitement wtf moments. Nowdays people cry about balance so much that they homogonize the so-called random elements of roguelikes. So that you can only get x1-x3 for bosses on the first floor, x4-x6 for bosses on the second floor... there's always 1 boss each floor, there's always 1-2 treasure rooms each floor, there are never big nasty level 5 enemies on floor 1, there are never wussy puny enemies on floor 5. You wont set a super omgwtfbbq sword of pwn from killing a green slime. I know it's not fair.. it's not supposed to be fair. It's supposed to be fun, and some people... people who actually LIKE roguelikes like that element. Instead people are making them less and less like rogue and more and more like Zelda or something. Then they end up being like some zelda-ish game without the finely detailed dungeon/puzzle design, and copy pasted preset 60ish room jigsaw puzzle garbage.

I prefer something that has a definite ending at some point rather than an endless slog, although having infinite rooms could be a good option to have. Being able to choose from a set of dungeon sizes would be nice in general. Having save points would likely be needed for exceptionally large dungeons so that those of us with limited time can enjoy it without having to do a marathon of the game.

IMHO:
easy modes or any difficulty setting for a roguelike defeats the purpose.
I would like to see this as a totally separate game mode selectable from the title screen with no interactions to the actual game.
How I imagine this (im a huge fan of random generation and permadeath) is that each room is random (enemies, items, background) and you just go from room to room untill you die. Then a leaderboard saying how far you got. So adding an easy mode would be pointless since I imagine it to scale in difficulty with each room.

To all wanting an easier mode so you are not locked out of content by your skill level: You will not be missing anything in this mode, it will contain assets from the original game but the level design will be a lot worst (in my experience random levels are not as good as hand crafted levels).
To all wanting an easier mode because 'why not just throw it in' : I imagine a scaling difficulty and a leaderboard with how far you got, so then we would need leaderboards for each difficulty which to me sounds like a whole lot of work.

The idea of roguelikes, RANDOM, and permadeath is that it is a challenge. You have no idea what will await you in the next room, you have no idea when you will get the next healing item, and if you make a mistake the run is over and you are dead for good.

I suggest that if you are wanting an easy mode, then this side content/ OPTIONAL mode is not for you. Even better, play it and you will eventually get much better, but first you will die, a whole lot, and then you will learn how to die less, eventually.

I am sorry if this seems mean or harsh, it is something I am passionate about as someone who enjoys permadeath and is not very good at video games. I am also not interested in getting my hand held and im not afraid to die, over and over and over.

The success of the Dark Souls series is because of their punishing difficulty. I would even say that games like PAC MAN and DONKEY KONG can start off easy but then progressively get harder. Their is no story so you are not missing out on content, its just a play untill you die and see how far you got.
The concept of randomness is great because you might get lucky one run and then loose it all, and then your next run you do very well but get horrible drops.
Binding of Issac is a great example of random permadeath game that im horrible at but played a ton.

instead of "save points" I would just like a "pause and quit" option. so if you want to stop playing, you wont lose your current progress, but its not a save in that you cannot go back to that point after you die. you know just like permadeath.
im not sure the point of having an end or worrying about size in this mode.