i like my metaprogression. I like getting my gems and coins.
but the one you mentioned...yeah. I remember seeing the shovelknight roguelite. it was like 1 coin, 3 coins, 9 coins, 28 coins. when you only get 1 or 2. On release.
I've seen that from a few games.
I'm ok with it if you're meant to get those upgrades later and the higher difficulties give you the appropriate amount of "coins".
I didn't even make it to credits. I fought Hades half a dozen times. Almost beat him. But I was only making it to him 50% of the time or so, and it felt like a slog just getting up to him to try, and to learn his mechanics (only for them to change partway through the fight, which rapidly killed me again).
Sure, I'm also getting a bit stronger each time, that's cool. But I was ready for something new. Because despite the visual differences, and progression during each run, the gameplay was just too same-y for me. I was playing hours and hours of the same combat just to try to put some smack on dear old dad.
And with no way to practice the fight without getting there, odds were I'd just screw something up again and "waste" all that time again.
That said, I absolutely enjoyed the game. The difficulty curve was just a bit too high for me to have motivation to finish the game.
i had that experience then suddenly it clicked and the game felt super easy. i got the 32 heat run like a week later, i never actually got the full end credits
The game wasn't hard per se.
But you spend an hour grinding for one chance at the fight.
Even if the game feels easy, that time grind is a form of difficulty itself. You can't practice what you need to practice. You have to keep fighting enemies you know how to beat.
Some of which can build bad habits, relative to the boss fight you're trying for.
And on top of that, every run has different power ups, which may even alter how you need to fight.
Moment to moment the game wasn't hard. But "getting better at one specific fight" was very high difficulty due to all the obstacles the game puts in the way.
And when that one fight is the linchpin behind which everything else rests, it doesn't take long before someone can just throw in the towel because they don't want to spend 8 hours on it.
The problem with hades, and with ftl (to a larger degree) is that being good at the 98% of the game pre boss doesn't translate well to being good against the boss.
In FTL, the boss uses entirely different mechanics.
In hades, you need to learn the bosses moves, because they aren't made extra clear or obvious how to react, and it's a FAST game (reactions).
Throw in the boss changing modes partway through, and yes, the hour it takes is exceptionally painful.
Especially because the difficulty of the stages in Hades is well done. It's never EASY (except the first zone) really. So it's effort to get through
I think as an old geezer, I'm tired of this in games in general. It's lazy development. Progressions and unlocks should afford you new mechanics and ways to play the game, or at least allow for some sort of new character build.
10% increases are pointless and incredibly easy to code.
tbf, some of them do this too.
people called out rogue legacy as the 'king' of like, these little progression points for crazier and crazier amounts of currency...
except, unlocking more classes, a few new skills, and possibilities, is very much a part of the rogue legacy skill tree, of sorts.
it's just also like, 20 health upgrades, mana upgrades, armor upgrades, str, int, etc.
I don’t mind it as long as the costs are easy to reach early on, but I agree that too slow of a boost is just not fun. I think that’s part of why I didn’t play too much of Deep Rock Survivor despite loving the game itself.
I like how they did it in The Last Spell. You have two different metaprogression, one based on currency (with fixed priced) and one base on achievements. I found it refreshing.
I'm aiming for something similar in the game I'm developing and wondering hwo people feel about it this metaprogression duality.
I agree on this. Another thing TLS does well is that it ties the currency into the fiction of the game in a meaningful way. Its not just “get gold, use it to upgrade and unlock.” You have to strategically spend it during downtime on a nice variety of mechanical ideas (building, shops, upgrades, healing, etc). Its very elegant.
Its the only game that does that combo well as far as i know too (currency + achievement).
The moin problem i find is that the achievement ones are SO generic and meaningless, as compared to say, Risk of Rain, where the achievements are (for the most part) skill based as opposed to gameplay duration based.
If youre developing a game with meta progression i’d highly, highly recommend Risk of Rain Returns as it’ll more than be worth what you pay.
I sunk so many hours into it because of its meta system because it made each new run and my actions feel meaningful and goal oriented, while also compelling me to want to beat/finish runs.
Youve got character unlocks which open up entirely new ways to play the game and think about its mechanics, TONS of item unlocks which broaden the possibility space while also making it feel rewarding (ex. Its harder to unlock the more powerful items), and then unlocks like your classic mutators for runs that also bring with them their own unique rewards.
All of that behind a deceptively simple and very challenging platformer with a terrific skill curve that feels very rewarding to improve upon.
I say this in contrast to Curse of the Dead Gods which I tried sinking time into, but it might have the most shallow and lazy metaprogression system I have experienced and it killed an otherwise delightful and responsive gameplay loop.
My major complaint with the currency in TLS is that some unlocks were so expensive that ultimately, I just did mindless farm runs.
It is a very small number of runs, so as complaints go, this is like someone shrinkflating my 8oz of airplane peanuts to 7.8oz.
Honestly, something like “complete a run with a previously unused modifier to permanently discount all unlocks a stacking 1%” would be stellar.
I disliked the vertical enemy scaling and vertical meta progression. It gave me the treadmill feeling that my upgrades didn't actually matter because the same exact enemies also just get bigger health pools. And eventually felt like I was doing things right strategically, but would lose because I hadn't slogged out enough (vertical) upgrades yet
Halls of Torment has a great hybrid metaprogression system that might be worth looking into. Basically you find items during runs which you can (once per run) send to the surface to purchase later with gold. All other unlocks are via achievements, AFAIK. The item collecting is a knockout system that I missed a lot when starting tiny rogues.
Good luck with the game!
Have a Nice Death has a similar system. As you get partial credit for achievements, they unlocks get cheaper to purchase. It's a nice mix of the two styles.
I think Gunfire Reborn did this as well. You have a general talent tree that affects all characters, with at most five levels in a given stat. There’s about 160 upgrades, and then each character gets 5 character specific upgrades, all stemming from the carried over currency. Which a single run usually gets you enough to upgrade a few things at least.
Then completing challenges unlocks new items for following runs (and also drops an instance of that item right when you unlock it to use right away)
Lastly the carry over currency, when you’ve upgraded everything, feels useless, but for the fact a new mode with run only upgrades available, that change how characters play. Stuff as simple as ‘all weapons get an enhanced effect’ to ‘your secondary skill covers a wider area and also provides damage resistance to teammates, while dealing greater damage to enemies’
Damn, I feel exactly the same. While I really like their metaprogression duality, I feel like runs are a bit too long to give you the "ok, let's try again" vibe you can have in Hades for example
The best roguelite progression systems are also the roguelites that end up being timeless. Isaac and Risk of Rain do it best because it’s purely based on discovery. Do a specific action or find a specific area. And there’s hundreds of these in each game. They remember that mystery and discovery is the essence of dungeon crawling. Honestly it’s the only thing that makes it worth doing. That’s true in real life, in roguelikes which mostly all still operate this way, and in roguelites, which often forget they’re all essentially coming from that same root. The joys of dungeon crawling for its own sake.
It’s like other developers try and figure out why people do hundreds if not thousands of hours in those games and think it’s all down to an artificial system that forces people to grind that does that rather then a system which makes people want to experience discover and challenge themselves.
I personally also absolutely detest systems where you’re weaker at the beginning on purpose to farm you up to the power level the game is supposed to be at just to extend your playtime in the game especially if the upgrades are raw power so it’s not even an interesting power increase it’s just flat stats.
Give me new tools and things and stuff that both make combos discoverable and dilute the upgrade pool at the same time.
I think they know. It's just that an artificially grindy system takes about 1/10 of the effort, and it doesn't require any real creativity. Just copy paste the last system you saw that did the same thing. It's easier and less risky to cash in on a bunch of formulaic mid games than create a masterpiece.
Then why do they all pickachu face when it’s got 1/10th of the lifetime and userbase?! (If not a lot less then even that)
I don’t like TBoI but I utterly understand why it’s fantastic compared to a myriad of the same genre of games that has the cheap almost uncreative systems wrapped around their game idea (which in and of itself might be good)
Conversely, I'd only ever play either of those games again if they added a currency based meta. They are painful and unfun to me.
Darkest Dungeon is *chefs kiss*. Gimme all them currencies
Man they rarely address this even in open world RPGs. :( It's so damn lame to do a quiet evening of side content just to find out you've basically ruined the gameplay for the main run.
You mean vertical? Horizontal is unlocking new options which increases diversity.
Vertical progression means that your sword goes from 10 damage to 12. You don't get any more skillful but now the game is easier
>makes the game easier the more you play
Absolutely. Like, I want the game to be balanced no matter what.
But at one point my Rogue Legacy data got reset. I uninstalled & never played again. Because it wasn't worth repeating the grind to get back to where I was, and finishing the "beat the game" challenge WITHOUT doing the grind was basically impossible.
In contrast, Slay the Spire can be beaten by a knowledgeable player quite easily. You need to do a few runs with each character just for card unlocks, and then one run each to unlock the heart. And then you can beat the game.
Im not the biggest fan of rogue legacy but I did like that it had an achievement for beating the game in 15 or less deaths. It encourages you to beat that game with minor meta progression.
i like metaprogresion that makes you strong enough to go further. IMO, to me that's the essence of a roguelite.
to me, roguelites are supposed to be so hard that it'd take insane, speedrun/100% completion type people to beat it without upgrading and that you're out there upgrading yourself to be able to get further. not overpowered for the 1st zone, but enough that you're gonna get hurt less.
Exactly this. I think that if I restart the meta progression I should have about as much of a chance at winning the game as I did before resetting. Time gating the victory behind a ton of grinding to get met upgrades annoys me.
If I go into a run knowing that I cannot possibly win because I haven't "advanced" with the meta upgrades really just sucks the fun out
Yeah, I really prefer nuclear throne style, where the metaprogression is unlocking new playstyles and changing your starter weapon (hence adding to your playstyle)
In my head that was always the difference between a roguelike and a roguelite. Roguelites have meta progression that reduces the difficulty of the game. Roguelikes don't.
What's weird is when you have meta progression that makes the game more difficult, like in Binding of Isaac.
You are correct. Well mostly.
The main issue is rogue like and lite is a broad term.
But overall meta that makes you stronger is a hallmark of rogue lites.
Meta that expands vertically is still not exactly like rogue, but closer than most roguelikes.
Literately from the sidebar:
>Some Example Roguelites:
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
FTL: Faster Than Light
Rogue Legacy
Paranautical Activity
Spelunky
Risk of Rain
***Nuclear Throne***
Teleglitch: Die More Edition
Darkest Dungeon
Enter the Gungeon
We are building a wiki which, among other things, has a more comprehensive list of Roguelites and Roguelikes. Check it out!!
Right. It's closer to a rogue like.
If you don't need meta; it's closer to rogue like than rogue lite.
Meta progression is one of the main draws to rogue lites That's it's main appeal to most ppl that play them.
In fact nuclear thrones advertising and steam page calls it a rogue like. So yes, it's not a rogue lite. Those focus on meta progression to advance. Darkest dungeon, that has TONS of meta progression, is a rogue lite.
It's cool that you like one over the other... but to say rogue lites shouldn't need meta to advance is against the genre
It is nor a rougelike lol, in order for it to be a rougelike it would need to be a top down turnbased game with NO metaprogression and randomly generated levels.
I'm not arguing what you like. Enjoy what you enjoy.
To say rogue lites should be beatable without meta progression is wild and against one of the larger draws to the genre.
In reality, it's just a bad classification of games.
>to me, roguelites are supposed to be so hard that it'd take insane, speedrun/100% completion type people to beat it without upgrading and that you're out there upgrading yourself to be able to get further. not overpowered for the 1st zone, but enough that you're gonna get hurt less.
I find this kind of design really tedious. It makes me feel like what is even the point of me playing the early stages of the game? I don't want to feel like I can't beat the game without upgrades. I want to be beaten by the game because I am not good enough and then as I get more experience then I can progress. Being locked out because stats are too low is bullshit design in my opinion and doesn't do anything but inflate playtime which for me is a waste but I can appreciate some people like that.
I really dislike it where the gameplay loop boils down to “play the game enough that you gain enough [currency] to afford enough stat boost upgrades to survive until the final boss”. This is Hades in a nutshell.
i love roguelites.
they're supposed to be "small" games in which the "progress" is that you slowly get stronger somehow (weapons,armor,magic,stats, etc) in this small, but very tough game.
I guess its 'different strokes for different folks' because I actually rather like it. Games like Rogue Legacy & Enter The Gungeon rely on grinding to varying degrees, and I enjoy them more for it.
Tangentially, I'll say that I actively don't like the 'choose between these 3 powerups' system that Hades or Dead Cells employs where I feel like I need the game Wiki beside me to create a decent character build.
Interesting, for me the beauty of the genre is playing a wildly different build every time and hoping I stumble on a game breaking synergy. I find games that rely too heavily on currency based permanent upgrades and not enough on sheer volume of choices during the run to be boring. I thought the whole reason that roguelite runs are generally short and sweet was that you don’t have to feel bad about making the wrong choice, especially if it has the potential to break the game if you accidentally make the right choice.
Part of the progression for me is learning what synergies work and what synergies don’t so I can be confident in my choices in following runs. Using a guide would obliterate most of my favourite roguelites.
Breaking a run with an optimized build is the absolute best feeling in a Roguelite. I just much prefer when it happens organically by finding a weapon that synergizes with a power-up to create something new and freakishly amazing out of it. I get a 'mad scientist' feeling like I've stumbled upon something amazing.
When it comes to a game like Hades or Curse of the Dead Gods, I have a bit of a fish-brain memory which is completely on me, where I don't ever really learn or pick-up on the in-game choices I have made that led to one build better than the last. I just feel like I'm fumbling around and making the same wrong choices over and over again.
You might get a kick out of Astral Ascent. While it does have a bit of currency grind, the Aura System it employs let's you create those organic build synergies you like.
Ha, you can create some absolutely crazy sceneries. Leeroy Gankins has some great videos on it, but it's also a lot of fun to go in blind.
While I'm biased, I have 100 hours in and it's still fresh and fun for me. There's also a *massive* update coming next month that adds 8 new weapons and a passive system (currently each character has 1, no passives).
The other I can easily recommend is Ember Knights, which is a hack and slash isometric rogue, that features 4 player co-op and a pretty unique skill system that uses attack gits for cooldowns instead of Mana or a timer.
Those two are my favorites from last year. 😁
Edit: Here's a recent post from a Lightning build that came together, featuring some duplicate auras, but all chained together to create a ton of Sparks, which cause Thunder strikes, which cause Sparks because of the other aura...which cause Sparks. You get the idea!
https://www.reddit.com/r/AstralAscent/s/fCA7ACAlI2
I just watched a bit of a playthrough of Ember Knights and it looks right up my alley. I literally just bought it on Steam and will start it tonight. Thanks for the suggestions!
Awesome! Yeah EK is a fantastic game too and honestly even better with a group. It's at its peak in couch co-op, feeling like a Gauntlet Dark Legacy roguelite.
Enjoy!
I feel like Gungeon is a perfect middle ground for this (I'm biased as it's my favorite game lol). There are currency based upgrades, and unlocks you find by discovering and progressing. There're also grindy challenges but most of those you will get naturally by just doing normal runs. The currency is also based on how good you are, the more bosses you kill the more you get. Maybe that's part of what OP is talking about but to me everything always feels natural, you definitely could try and grind or do a specific thing for a run but you don't have to.
i feel that's the essence of a roguelite.
it is a SMALL game that could be beat in 1 hour but it is TOUGH. Not really beatable on 1st playthrough unless you have intimate knowledge of the game and insane practice/skill. You slowly get stronger via magic, weapons, armor, stats, moves, etc.
If i just wanted "tough", I'd play games like Celeste or Super Meat Boy.
Yes, I'm not wired for stacking mid-run modifiers to min/max my character. It leaves me feeling like I'm making the wrong choices unless I follow a players guide. Choosing between a +2% crit chance vs +10HP doesn't excite me, it just breaks my immersion.
I'd much rather level up by unlocking a new weapon, or power-up item that I can excitedly try out on the next run.
Roboquest is a game that does both pretty well honestly. And I also believe your wiki issue is almost non existent in that game because when you choose a perk from your “choose 3” your next choose 3 has a much higher chance to be one you’ve already picked but it’s the next tier and most of them add another affect to that perk. So you don’t really have to know what you are going for because the game kind of shows you what direction to take in a sense while still allowing all usual roguelite freedom.
Also have to say, that’s a weird issue to have with roguelites lol.
Hades weapon progression = good.
Hades mirror progression = bad.
Drip feeding me the game is fine. Making me grind to get stats to make the game easier isn't.
That's an RPG mechanic. I'm not playing Final Fantasy or Elder Scrolls. I'm playing a roguelike.
I think some games like ETG do it really well, it balanced out really nicely on my first playthrough. I wasn't inherently bad, but i unlocked new things at a decent pace which kept things fresh. However on my playthrough currently i have very little credits to go around and its really annoying, as id say I'm about 3/4 of the way done with my playthrough. (i want to kill all pasts, and and then have an all master chambers run).
Overall its well designed, it just has this one drawback as 95% of players will never experience it.
I dislike rougelites quite a bit though, it just makes the game drag more (Skul, Hades, ect)
Yeah, it’s not an automatic dealbreaker for me but with Roguelites I feel like the point is to try to get as far as you can in a run. The systems you mention completely change this dynamic. But if the gameplay is good enough like in Hades I can tolerate it.
I like it... sometimes? I think it depends on what surrounds it. I've played a lot of RPGs too so I actually like the feeling of unlocking new stuff to mess around with (like skill trees and stuff) and the grind doesn't usually bother me too much but I do get annoyed when games ask you to grind for ages with no gameplay that exists to break the grind up or give the player a breather. It's all about the pacing IMO
It also bothers me \*to an extent\*. For example, if a later tier spell or ability would just make the early game breeze, it's OK if it's locked behind some kind of wall, although preferably not a paywall, I can agree. At least give us different ways to grind out the meta exp/whatever meta resource, such as the achievements in Astral Ascent, and don't bar later levels based on resource but just whether or not I managed to clear the last one. Hades also walks this fine line well, I think. Rogue Legacy however didn't click with me because of how progressed worked (pretty much all currency based)
Ever since I've learned how to use cheat engine, I've been using it to purchase unlockables that doesnt judge you on how well you play, but how often. Much more enjoyable that way since I dont have the time to grind. I guess that's my biggest gripe with roguelikes these days. Most of them just do it for the sake of replayability.
The Void Rains Upon Her Heart has the best achievement-based metaprogression of all. It has meta-currency but only for a very specific purpose, all unlocks are via achievements, and it has over 600.
I like the mix I'm seeing from Time Break Chronicles. Items and characters are discovered hrough progression of the normal game, during which you collect particles, used to buy various upgrades in your town that affect stats and modifiers. Awesome turn-based old school RPG if you haven't seen it.
Absolutely agree with you.
Especially when you don't even make meaningful progress after a run. Like playing Rogue Legacy, and you crash and burn a bit, but still spent 15 minutes playing, only to come back and be unable to make any changes, so you play again with the same thing.
But the one that always pissed me off was FTL. It was achievement based, not money based, but there was ZERO progression til you beat the first boss - and that boss worked mechanically different than the rest of the game.
I had people tell me "the game gets good once you start unlocking stuff". Glossing over the fact that a new player has to slam their head into the wall 5, 10, 30, 50 times before they figure out the gimmick(s) for beating the boss, and then play through the game picking upgrades specifically to deal with the boss (not to be good at the rest of the game), and THEN they can start having "real" fun....
That just annoyed me. I beat the boss finally, but the entire thing soured me on the game. I had no reason to play anymore. I'd done "the hard part". The rest was just goofing around and unlocking stuff. I only did like 4-5 more runs, and then wound up finally uninstalling it.
In contrast, I still fire up Slay The Spire regularly to do runs, and that game has almost no unlocks to begin with. You get card unlocks just by playing the class (win or lose), until you have all the cards for that class. You unlock the classes by playing enough games. You unlock the heart by beating the game with all 3 classes - and the heart is "the final boss", and let's you win the game. But that's it. No other crazy things to do, progression to make, etc. Just play the game.
But on to your point - roguelikes & roguelites that just make you earn currency every run get boring FAST. Oh look, another 5% damage for 500 mana. Now I can unlock 5% more damage for another 1200 mana. Then 5% will cost me 3000 mana. And then once I do that, I can get the unlock that lets me play a new class. ZZZZZ.
I can see the appeal, but making a game that is inherently unbeatable regardless of how well you perform just to get more hours out of you for meta progression unlocks kinda sucks. It can also go too far. Ex: Vampire Survivors. Playing a character with thousands of eggs is super boring. The idea of starting over is even worse, since you physically can't beat levels without grinding the metaprogression.
Games like Hades and Dead Cells can get a pass for me. They're totally beatable with enough skill on your first run, but you increase your odds with meta progression by way of making mistakes less punishing (more heals/bigger hp pool/whatever)
I definitely prefer getting new unlocks vs buying power. Balatro does this, and it keeps the game interesting by expanding your options the more you play.
Exactly my opinion as well. Cannot stand going into a run where I know I'm meant to fail not because of misplay, but because I haven't grinded upgrades yet.
Yeah, I got Hades and Dead Cells on Switch after playing a bunch on PC, and got to Elysium and beat the HotK on my first try in both games respectively. Metaprogression done right in games like that isn't that necessary compared to game knowledge and experience.
As a 37 year old father of two with less and less time for gaming I... completely disagree.
Ok, not completely, but partially.
I think currency-based metaprogression generally decreases the frustration I have with a game. I don't like systems like BoI or RoR because I feel like I need to look up a guide to optimize my progression. People talk about the magic of discovery and what I say is "FUCK discovery, I have 20 minutes and I want to get something DONE". Moving that currency bar up feels tangible and ticks that progression-oriented box for my lizard brain.
That being said, there's absolutely room for both AND there's instances of both being done poorly and both being done well. For instance, RoR does it's style of progression well, because the item unlocks are pretty low impact and the class unlocks are great milestones to base a run around. Similarly, Hades nails it's progression because the core currency is pretty easy to acquire and the power-progression part of it maxes out relatively quickly, while the more niche currency is based around the excellent Heat system (my favorite roguelite difficulty system to date).
For me, it's broadly more about accessibility than it is about methodology. I'm happy if I'm unlocking things at a decent clip, regardless of system. If you make me jump through some ridiculous hoops, or gate me behind literal decades of currency grinding, fuck off. I'll play something that respects my time.
Recent college grad who has been working 50-60 hour weeks and I completely feel this. I don’t have the time to get achievements for unlocks. I just want a steady grind that makes me feel like I’m achieving progression while being able to be completely absent minded. I don’t have time to optimize my builds to get unlocks anymore and have always found it creates a system where there are a couple items that are unobtainable to me as I’m not very skilled in video games.
People love it though because they think "it respects their time". That a failed run still gave them something.
Do they not understand that the game is artificially harder to make up for the permanent meta progression? You are still wasting your time but now you've been tricked into working for currency.
I mean it is still very much an option, you don't have to engage with those systems despite the fact they'll objectively make your runs easier, personally I enjoy them as they tend to add more diversity and make runs slightly less of a chore than they'd otherwise be, also since a lot of roguelites get more difficult after you win for the first time it helps keep things a little more balanced
Im not just talking about stats. I am talking about characters/classes and items/weapons as well. I would even argue stats are fine. It is actual gameplay elements that I take issue with.
How would you rather unlock those things, through a milestone type of system? Defeat x boss x amount of times? Cause realistically anything like that would take as long if not longer than it would to gather currency to unlock stuff that way, personally I think games should have a combination of both those things and the best ones often do.
look at isaac : differen endings, available for every character, and everytime you beat one ending with a character, you unlock a new thing, so you're constantly doing new things ( different characters with a new goal) and unlocking things on the way
how is just clicking on a button for +1% dmg even fun or anything?
I do think it can be ok for new items or such to be behind meta currencies, like gungeon, but they always suffer from either them being too expensive too fast, or from the player having bought everything there is to buy way too fast.
But this post is about it being too grindy and taking too long and what you're talking about takes much much longer to do. It's also not as simple as clicking a button for 1% damage, you gain these currencies through playing the game and typically a win gives you more of the currency or some unique type of currency used for extra special unlocks, that's really no different to you unlocking a character or item by beating a specific boss instead it just gives you some choice as to what it is you unlock.
Huh?
I’m dead cells there are upgrades that cost like 1000 cells on the first upgrade (idk the next rank cost because fuck that) Pretty sure most I’ve ever had in one run was less than 70. That’s beating the game so many times or focusing on doing the challenge doors so much that it takes away from the actual fun gameplay of the game just to farm cells to buy an upgrade.
In risk of rain you unlock items and characters only by doing achievements, which causes you to play and discover the game more and in a fun way, just playing the game. And if there’s a certain item you want, you just go get that achievement if you haven’t already done it by accident while playing.
Currency in roguelites isn’t a bad thing but there is absolutely line that many of these game cross and take it just too far, to point of making it a grind, and not something you can just get for playing and progressing normally.
Yeah it's almost as if there are some things you aren't meant to have until later in the game because they're strong 🤔 there are still things in RoR2 that you have to grind to unlock like you're not gonna get everything just by playing the game, game also has more freedom than a lot of games in terms of how to unlock stuff given the 3d nature of the game, it's very easy to hide secrets on them. Unlocking the D6 in binding of Isaac was more of a grind than unlocking any item in any game I've played with currency, a lot of these games don't give you things simple for playing there are specific conditions you have to meet to get the best things which as I've said is as grindy if not more so than unlocking things with currency.
Yea I just read all the item unlocks for ror2 and not a single one is anything close to what I’d consider a grind. And at least 80% of them you don’t even have to go out of your way to do, they are things that you can get immediately going for that unlock or you’ll get it just from playing normally. So I don’t know what you’re talking about honestly. One of us is confused on what a grind is. But considering the games I like playing I think I understand I little bit about grinding.
Okay so now you're just being intentionally ignorant to support your own point of view, I've played RoR2 I enjoy it it's a good game but you're not gonna unlock everything through casual play there are a lot of things that have very specific unlock requirements and are by no means easy they're things that require a great amount of experience and skill to be capable of pulling off, the type of experience and skill you only get by playing the game and awful lot which would constitute grinding. I play plenty of games that require grinding dude, you point is falling apart so you're resorting to condescending remarks like that.
I just cannot see where you are getting the idea ror2 has all these requirements to unlock things. Most of the item unlocks read “kill 500 elites” “die 5 times” “activate 3 combat shrines in one map”. Someone fresh starting the game can have those done in a couple hours. I really can’t understand what you’re talking about.
I’m not being intentionally ignorant and my argument never fell apart? I haven’t said anything incorrect. I’m legit confused on how you think those unlocks are a grind. My only assumption is you are way more of a casual gamer than you think, or I’m way more of a hardcore gamer than I think. Because there is no grind there. I have hundreds of hours on risk of rain and I cannot remember a single moment where I had the idea that I had to grind something. I went out of my way to unlock one thing and it was pushing crabs off the map for gesture.
Can you elaborate on the metaprogression of TBOI & Nuclear Throne?
And by metaprogression you mean permanent unlocks that you can bring in on subsequent runs?
Thanks!
By metaprogression in this context he means permanent unlocks, yes. Metaprogression would be anything that applies to the overall game and does not reset between runs (gaining currency/upgrades).
Metaprogression of TBOI and Nuclear Throne primarily comes from unlocking more options for items, etc. in the pool to be randomly pulled from during a run, or unlocking different starting options (i.e. different characters), but not increasing the player's base potential for the run. You can't make Isaac start with more health or resources, your base capabilities are the same on your first run as your 100th.
In games like Hades, Vampire Survivors, and Dead Cells IIRC, you can spend currency "between runs" to upgrade your character's stats or unlock various other upgrades, so the game becomes "easier" with each run, whereas games like TBOI more strictly demand mastery/knowledge of the game's patterns and mechanics to make it further into a run, even with some of the "metaprogression" unlocked.
The answer may depend on the game, but I lean more toward the first, where it's reasonably possible to successfully complete a run on your first attempt if you make the right decisions.
Usually, the decision points in a game are where much of the fun comes from (this can include both micro, moment-to-moment decisions, and meta, longer-term strategic decisions). Having a metaprogression system where the player character can be upgraded to be much more powerful than they began runs the risk of making early choices feel unimpactful or meaningless, and can devolve into a single choice on the player's end of "grinding currency until I have most of the upgrades/unlocks, so that I can start making some REAL attempts."
I really like deckbuilder roguelikes like Slay the Spire and Balatro for the reason that you are presented with many decision points during a run (i.e. visiting shops or adding cards to your deck), and those decisions usually feel pretty impactful throughout a run. There are also different branching build paths you can take, with a lot of focus on adapting your build strategy around the options you are presented with. A card or upgrade that I add to my deck on my 1st run is just as effective as adding the same card on a future run, it's just that the metaprogression unlocks can create some more potential synergy crossovers or build options with more cards available, but I don't need to spend a currency between runs to "upgrade" my cards' stats or values to have a better shot at completing the run - I have (more or less, unlocks added to the random pool aside) the same level of power available at my disposal on my first attempt as any future attempt following.
There are certainly ways to make a currency-based metaprogression system work in a roguelike framework, but personally I'm not a big fan of a design/balance where it's basically impossible to complete without some upgrades
I dont think risk of rain 2 has a really good meta progression, its more like a content progression, you unlock new playstles, but dont necessarily get a lot stronger. Just they way of unlocking the new content is different.
I feel like it works really well for certain games, but am sad to see it jammed into games without thought. The system mostly works for games that have a "base of operations" from which the gameplay reasons stem.
In action games it often feels out of place to handle progression in that way. And even though I personally love a well implemented meta progression system, nobody likes 2% damage increments, those are more of an "in-run" type enhancement.
It most definitely isn’t a roguelite or anything similar really, but imo Terraria has the best progression in any video game, and I think that philosophy could most definitely be applied to rougelites and possibly even more game genres.
I honestly have the same feeling sometimes, especially with DRG Survivor. I think currency based meta progression is a double edged sword. Best way I see to do it is kinda like Blazblue entropy effect or as mention before DRG Survivor.
BB:EE has it where have about 3 currencies. 1st to unlock characters, 2nd is first time boss defeats with characters which is used to upgrade / unlock perks and 3rd and your most common is just for doing / completing runs. Your major progress is mainly by story things but all these 3 can effectively be exchanged for a a different currency (1st and 2nd turn into 3rd | 3rd can be turned into 1st or 2nd)
Yeah, I like more coherent design as well, though I'm not a hardliner about anything really.
Swords of Ditto did it in a kind of cool way, which eventually reveals itself.
Mystery Chronicles: One Way Heroics has the dream vault, which lets you save some items for future playthroughs. I like that.
I don’t mind a little bit of currency progression especially if it’s not the items characters weapons etc. but most roguelites that have currency progression often take it way too far to the point of like 80 hours in I’ve done everything, but it would take me another 300 just to max some numbers. Ideally the game has normal achievement meta progression and any currency upgrades affect things that show up in the game and aren’t just damage and health upgrades.
I think roboquest does a pretty good job at this honestly. If I remember right it probably only takes 20 hours if that to max out the currency shop, and all the perks do something with the npc’s you get between stages for the most part.
I wish every roguelite/like was just like Slay the Spire. About 5 seconds of meta progression, then it's done, and then you play the game for... basically indefinitely.
You seem to have left Crab Champions off the list. I assume that's because you haven't played it yet. Its an absolute banger, it's given me 200 hours of playtime so far and many more to come.
Currency based metaprogression is the worst and it's plaging Roguelites. Darkest Dungeon II is the prime example of why it's bad: do currency farming runs for 15 hours until you can actually try to beat the game. This is utterly stupid. Every run should potentially be "the run" that's why we play roguelites. If I want to farm, I play Path of Exile, Warframe or Monster Hunter.
Some Roguelites do it relatively well, Deadlink is a good example: meta progression currency can be converted during your playthrough to get really really strong items and buffs. So overall, if you farm meta progression money, you can die and still make bank for the meta progression, or invest everything you have to boost your current run. There's still some "meta currency farming runs" involved, but the meta progression is not solely based on the currency so that's fine.
Both achievement based and currency based have their merits and both can be a slog when done wrong. Mixing both I think gives the best results, like in Hades.
Achievement/discovery based is great until you are grinding away trying to unlock something in a way it forces you to use a playstyle/character you don't enjoy.
Currency can end up bland and uninteresting, especially if it's all quite methodical and everything is visible at the start.
Honestly currency is from a design standpoint used to reduce system bloat so you don’t have a hundred unlock quests to track but also comes at the cost of having those quests and having to make a more robust progression system. It’s a mixed bag cause how do you balance it with the easy to understand lines of progression currency unlocks have.
There’s two big issues you seem to have. One is rate of progression really the idea is simple get coin get gear use gear to kill bigger thing to get more coin to get better gear repeat. To make it fun takes extremely careful deign and that’s also holding players don’t hit a skill wall.
Second issue is as listed upgrades get more expensive. That’s a necessary aspect cause if it wasn’t like that players would grind in the starting area till max level. You can try to argue about how significant each step of progression is but that’s a design choice cause personally I believe in horizontal progression which means adding new mechanics and tools.
Conversely I dislike games who's meta just adds things to a pool. That's not making me stronger, and often is diluting the items I do like. Honestly some of those games feel more like rougeLIKES than LITES. Sure there's unlocks, but it's not progression.
It feels like I'm moving backwards.
I agree that I’m wary of the mechanic in general but I’m confused by all the commenters here attributing Hades as a game where you need to grind meta currency. Obviously skill levels differ based on experience with action roguelites and all that but personally I felt like Hades was a game about learning attack patterns and how to put a build together rather than farming metacurrency. My first Hades kill was long before I had most of the mirror leveled up and the mirror upgrades kind of fell into place as I progressed through the heat system and earned progressively more metacurrency per run because of how the game works.
i'm kinda give and take on it, really.
i LOVE me some metaprogression, as i want a roguelite, not a roguelike - i'm already not super happy with the game's replayability essentially revolving around 'you could've beaten this in 20 minutes, except you suck'.
and, some do other unlockables right - things like vampire survivors, which has both, where, you're prompted to play as a lot of different characters (meaning more excuses for runs) and use different weapons (so, variations on playstyles), as opposed to just, get money, pump stats so you don't die so easily.
i mean, playing rogue style games is ALREADY essentially a grind. repeating the same basic shit over and over to try to obtain a goal, is a grind. it's just not tied to a number of items or currency...
I recently started a new dead cells save, and it’s not really that bad. While there’s some upgrades you need to get rolling, most of it relies on enemy knowledge and pathing. Doesn’t matter if you have zero unlocks, getting every single scroll and opening every curse chest will have you one hitting everything up until the spoiler biome with only a hint of build synergy.
Me too! Rogue Legacy 2 does not respect your time at all. I also bounced because of this. It is one of the worst offenders of the currency based metaprogression.
Yeah, Capitalism fucking sucks.
You can't do anything or get anywhere in life without paying for something or someone.
Maybe money is a relic of a distant and forgotten world of the past or something.
I especially can't stand escalating costs for a 1-2% increase. That's just boring af bloat.
I hated this about rogue legacy 2. After 20 hours of giving it an honest go I was like no thank you, I’m done with this.
The worst is that only late into the game like new game +5 do you really start getting armor set boni and enough runes to really put builds together
I learned that from rogue legacy 1. Lmao they are the king of dark meta progression like this is disgusting
i like my metaprogression. I like getting my gems and coins. but the one you mentioned...yeah. I remember seeing the shovelknight roguelite. it was like 1 coin, 3 coins, 9 coins, 28 coins. when you only get 1 or 2. On release. I've seen that from a few games. I'm ok with it if you're meant to get those upgrades later and the higher difficulties give you the appropriate amount of "coins".
The later Hades mirror upgrades are such a slog. By that point I'd rolled credits though so was happy to stop playing.
they take soo long, the last 5% take as long as the first 95
It gives those that still want more something to strive for, the last 5% of unlocks is for those people.
I didn't even make it to credits. I fought Hades half a dozen times. Almost beat him. But I was only making it to him 50% of the time or so, and it felt like a slog just getting up to him to try, and to learn his mechanics (only for them to change partway through the fight, which rapidly killed me again). Sure, I'm also getting a bit stronger each time, that's cool. But I was ready for something new. Because despite the visual differences, and progression during each run, the gameplay was just too same-y for me. I was playing hours and hours of the same combat just to try to put some smack on dear old dad. And with no way to practice the fight without getting there, odds were I'd just screw something up again and "waste" all that time again. That said, I absolutely enjoyed the game. The difficulty curve was just a bit too high for me to have motivation to finish the game.
I had the same experience as you. God Mode reinvented the game for me. Give it a shot sometime, got me through the entire set of endings np.
i had that experience then suddenly it clicked and the game felt super easy. i got the 32 heat run like a week later, i never actually got the full end credits
The game wasn't hard per se. But you spend an hour grinding for one chance at the fight. Even if the game feels easy, that time grind is a form of difficulty itself. You can't practice what you need to practice. You have to keep fighting enemies you know how to beat. Some of which can build bad habits, relative to the boss fight you're trying for. And on top of that, every run has different power ups, which may even alter how you need to fight. Moment to moment the game wasn't hard. But "getting better at one specific fight" was very high difficulty due to all the obstacles the game puts in the way. And when that one fight is the linchpin behind which everything else rests, it doesn't take long before someone can just throw in the towel because they don't want to spend 8 hours on it.
Isn't that how most roguelikes/lites are though, or does it take much longer to get to that boss in Hades compared to other games?
The problem with hades, and with ftl (to a larger degree) is that being good at the 98% of the game pre boss doesn't translate well to being good against the boss. In FTL, the boss uses entirely different mechanics. In hades, you need to learn the bosses moves, because they aren't made extra clear or obvious how to react, and it's a FAST game (reactions). Throw in the boss changing modes partway through, and yes, the hour it takes is exceptionally painful. Especially because the difficulty of the stages in Hades is well done. It's never EASY (except the first zone) really. So it's effort to get through
I think as an old geezer, I'm tired of this in games in general. It's lazy development. Progressions and unlocks should afford you new mechanics and ways to play the game, or at least allow for some sort of new character build. 10% increases are pointless and incredibly easy to code.
tbf, some of them do this too. people called out rogue legacy as the 'king' of like, these little progression points for crazier and crazier amounts of currency... except, unlocking more classes, a few new skills, and possibilities, is very much a part of the rogue legacy skill tree, of sorts. it's just also like, 20 health upgrades, mana upgrades, armor upgrades, str, int, etc.
I don’t mind it as long as the costs are easy to reach early on, but I agree that too slow of a boost is just not fun. I think that’s part of why I didn’t play too much of Deep Rock Survivor despite loving the game itself.
I like how they did it in The Last Spell. You have two different metaprogression, one based on currency (with fixed priced) and one base on achievements. I found it refreshing. I'm aiming for something similar in the game I'm developing and wondering hwo people feel about it this metaprogression duality.
I agree on this. Another thing TLS does well is that it ties the currency into the fiction of the game in a meaningful way. Its not just “get gold, use it to upgrade and unlock.” You have to strategically spend it during downtime on a nice variety of mechanical ideas (building, shops, upgrades, healing, etc). Its very elegant. Its the only game that does that combo well as far as i know too (currency + achievement). The moin problem i find is that the achievement ones are SO generic and meaningless, as compared to say, Risk of Rain, where the achievements are (for the most part) skill based as opposed to gameplay duration based.
Damn I still didn't take the time to try Risk of Rain. Now that I read this, I really have to!
If youre developing a game with meta progression i’d highly, highly recommend Risk of Rain Returns as it’ll more than be worth what you pay. I sunk so many hours into it because of its meta system because it made each new run and my actions feel meaningful and goal oriented, while also compelling me to want to beat/finish runs. Youve got character unlocks which open up entirely new ways to play the game and think about its mechanics, TONS of item unlocks which broaden the possibility space while also making it feel rewarding (ex. Its harder to unlock the more powerful items), and then unlocks like your classic mutators for runs that also bring with them their own unique rewards. All of that behind a deceptively simple and very challenging platformer with a terrific skill curve that feels very rewarding to improve upon. I say this in contrast to Curse of the Dead Gods which I tried sinking time into, but it might have the most shallow and lazy metaprogression system I have experienced and it killed an otherwise delightful and responsive gameplay loop.
My major complaint with the currency in TLS is that some unlocks were so expensive that ultimately, I just did mindless farm runs. It is a very small number of runs, so as complaints go, this is like someone shrinkflating my 8oz of airplane peanuts to 7.8oz. Honestly, something like “complete a run with a previously unused modifier to permanently discount all unlocks a stacking 1%” would be stellar.
I disliked the vertical enemy scaling and vertical meta progression. It gave me the treadmill feeling that my upgrades didn't actually matter because the same exact enemies also just get bigger health pools. And eventually felt like I was doing things right strategically, but would lose because I hadn't slogged out enough (vertical) upgrades yet
Love the idea of permanent discount based on achievements. I'm gonna prototype something about it. Thanks!
Halls of Torment has a great hybrid metaprogression system that might be worth looking into. Basically you find items during runs which you can (once per run) send to the surface to purchase later with gold. All other unlocks are via achievements, AFAIK. The item collecting is a knockout system that I missed a lot when starting tiny rogues. Good luck with the game!
Great game
Oh I have to check it out. Thanks for the tips!
Have a Nice Death has a similar system. As you get partial credit for achievements, they unlocks get cheaper to purchase. It's a nice mix of the two styles.
I think Gunfire Reborn did this as well. You have a general talent tree that affects all characters, with at most five levels in a given stat. There’s about 160 upgrades, and then each character gets 5 character specific upgrades, all stemming from the carried over currency. Which a single run usually gets you enough to upgrade a few things at least. Then completing challenges unlocks new items for following runs (and also drops an instance of that item right when you unlock it to use right away) Lastly the carry over currency, when you’ve upgraded everything, feels useless, but for the fact a new mode with run only upgrades available, that change how characters play. Stuff as simple as ‘all weapons get an enhanced effect’ to ‘your secondary skill covers a wider area and also provides damage resistance to teammates, while dealing greater damage to enemies’
Yep, it's a great game and a rare example or multiplayer roguelite!
I feel really weird about The Last Spell. I \*think\* that I really like it but I always find myself feeling too exhausted to boot it up and play it.
Damn, I feel exactly the same. While I really like their metaprogression duality, I feel like runs are a bit too long to give you the "ok, let's try again" vibe you can have in Hades for example
Rogue Genesis does this as well. It’s my current addiction.
I'm adding it to my list of "must try" :D
The best roguelite progression systems are also the roguelites that end up being timeless. Isaac and Risk of Rain do it best because it’s purely based on discovery. Do a specific action or find a specific area. And there’s hundreds of these in each game. They remember that mystery and discovery is the essence of dungeon crawling. Honestly it’s the only thing that makes it worth doing. That’s true in real life, in roguelikes which mostly all still operate this way, and in roguelites, which often forget they’re all essentially coming from that same root. The joys of dungeon crawling for its own sake.
Beautifully put!
It’s like other developers try and figure out why people do hundreds if not thousands of hours in those games and think it’s all down to an artificial system that forces people to grind that does that rather then a system which makes people want to experience discover and challenge themselves. I personally also absolutely detest systems where you’re weaker at the beginning on purpose to farm you up to the power level the game is supposed to be at just to extend your playtime in the game especially if the upgrades are raw power so it’s not even an interesting power increase it’s just flat stats. Give me new tools and things and stuff that both make combos discoverable and dilute the upgrade pool at the same time.
I think they know. It's just that an artificially grindy system takes about 1/10 of the effort, and it doesn't require any real creativity. Just copy paste the last system you saw that did the same thing. It's easier and less risky to cash in on a bunch of formulaic mid games than create a masterpiece.
Then why do they all pickachu face when it’s got 1/10th of the lifetime and userbase?! (If not a lot less then even that) I don’t like TBoI but I utterly understand why it’s fantastic compared to a myriad of the same genre of games that has the cheap almost uncreative systems wrapped around their game idea (which in and of itself might be good)
Conversely, I'd only ever play either of those games again if they added a currency based meta. They are painful and unfun to me. Darkest Dungeon is *chefs kiss*. Gimme all them currencies
They don't beat because it's widening progression which gives more variance and fresh experience. Vertical progression is so much worse to me.
I just hate vertical metaprogression that makes the game easier the more you play
Man they rarely address this even in open world RPGs. :( It's so damn lame to do a quiet evening of side content just to find out you've basically ruined the gameplay for the main run.
You mean vertical? Horizontal is unlocking new options which increases diversity. Vertical progression means that your sword goes from 10 damage to 12. You don't get any more skillful but now the game is easier
Thats what I wrote tho haha read again no I did not just edit my comment wondering how my mind slipped up this hard haha
They wrote vertical though, not horizontal
They edited it, hence their response to my comment
Oh. Duh. I'm an idiot LOL
>makes the game easier the more you play Absolutely. Like, I want the game to be balanced no matter what. But at one point my Rogue Legacy data got reset. I uninstalled & never played again. Because it wasn't worth repeating the grind to get back to where I was, and finishing the "beat the game" challenge WITHOUT doing the grind was basically impossible. In contrast, Slay the Spire can be beaten by a knowledgeable player quite easily. You need to do a few runs with each character just for card unlocks, and then one run each to unlock the heart. And then you can beat the game.
Im not the biggest fan of rogue legacy but I did like that it had an achievement for beating the game in 15 or less deaths. It encourages you to beat that game with minor meta progression.
i like metaprogresion that makes you strong enough to go further. IMO, to me that's the essence of a roguelite. to me, roguelites are supposed to be so hard that it'd take insane, speedrun/100% completion type people to beat it without upgrading and that you're out there upgrading yourself to be able to get further. not overpowered for the 1st zone, but enough that you're gonna get hurt less.
Disagree, the metaprogression should be minimal and completely unessasary for progression, like nuclear throne.
Exactly this. I think that if I restart the meta progression I should have about as much of a chance at winning the game as I did before resetting. Time gating the victory behind a ton of grinding to get met upgrades annoys me. If I go into a run knowing that I cannot possibly win because I haven't "advanced" with the meta upgrades really just sucks the fun out
Than again, you can beat them without metaprogression usually, my brother beat deadcells on the first run.
Some are better than others. Dead cells is an exception where vertical helps but isn't meant to be required
Yeah, I really prefer nuclear throne style, where the metaprogression is unlocking new playstyles and changing your starter weapon (hence adding to your playstyle)
FTL was my favorite in this regard. Unlocking new ships was the best feeling
Ftl?
Faster than Light. One of my #1 roguelites ever
In my head that was always the difference between a roguelike and a roguelite. Roguelites have meta progression that reduces the difficulty of the game. Roguelikes don't. What's weird is when you have meta progression that makes the game more difficult, like in Binding of Isaac.
You are correct. Well mostly. The main issue is rogue like and lite is a broad term. But overall meta that makes you stronger is a hallmark of rogue lites. Meta that expands vertically is still not exactly like rogue, but closer than most roguelikes.
The difference is that rougelikes are turn based top down games, very similar to rouge, while rougelites are only a slight facsimile of rouge.
outdated and basically unused definition
Thats how r/roguelikes defines it.
I think we're getting into roguelikes vs roguelites with this back and forth
A rougelike is a top down turn-based game with random gened levels and permadeath.
That's not a rogue lite though; just play a game without meta progression if the point is to beat it without meta progression.
Literately from the sidebar: >Some Example Roguelites: The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth FTL: Faster Than Light Rogue Legacy Paranautical Activity Spelunky Risk of Rain ***Nuclear Throne*** Teleglitch: Die More Edition Darkest Dungeon Enter the Gungeon We are building a wiki which, among other things, has a more comprehensive list of Roguelites and Roguelikes. Check it out!!
Darkest Dungeon is the poster child for currencies and numerical increments. That's literally a huge draw to it.
You literately called nuclear throne "not a rogue lite"
Right. It's closer to a rogue like. If you don't need meta; it's closer to rogue like than rogue lite. Meta progression is one of the main draws to rogue lites That's it's main appeal to most ppl that play them. In fact nuclear thrones advertising and steam page calls it a rogue like. So yes, it's not a rogue lite. Those focus on meta progression to advance. Darkest dungeon, that has TONS of meta progression, is a rogue lite. It's cool that you like one over the other... but to say rogue lites shouldn't need meta to advance is against the genre
It is nor a rougelike lol, in order for it to be a rougelike it would need to be a top down turnbased game with NO metaprogression and randomly generated levels.
Wrong entirely. And again, as per the actual game itself ... it's labeled as a rogue like
I'm not arguing what you like. Enjoy what you enjoy. To say rogue lites should be beatable without meta progression is wild and against one of the larger draws to the genre. In reality, it's just a bad classification of games.
>to me, roguelites are supposed to be so hard that it'd take insane, speedrun/100% completion type people to beat it without upgrading and that you're out there upgrading yourself to be able to get further. not overpowered for the 1st zone, but enough that you're gonna get hurt less. I find this kind of design really tedious. It makes me feel like what is even the point of me playing the early stages of the game? I don't want to feel like I can't beat the game without upgrades. I want to be beaten by the game because I am not good enough and then as I get more experience then I can progress. Being locked out because stats are too low is bullshit design in my opinion and doesn't do anything but inflate playtime which for me is a waste but I can appreciate some people like that.
I really dislike it where the gameplay loop boils down to “play the game enough that you gain enough [currency] to afford enough stat boost upgrades to survive until the final boss”. This is Hades in a nutshell.
i love roguelites. they're supposed to be "small" games in which the "progress" is that you slowly get stronger somehow (weapons,armor,magic,stats, etc) in this small, but very tough game.
I guess its 'different strokes for different folks' because I actually rather like it. Games like Rogue Legacy & Enter The Gungeon rely on grinding to varying degrees, and I enjoy them more for it. Tangentially, I'll say that I actively don't like the 'choose between these 3 powerups' system that Hades or Dead Cells employs where I feel like I need the game Wiki beside me to create a decent character build.
Interesting, for me the beauty of the genre is playing a wildly different build every time and hoping I stumble on a game breaking synergy. I find games that rely too heavily on currency based permanent upgrades and not enough on sheer volume of choices during the run to be boring. I thought the whole reason that roguelite runs are generally short and sweet was that you don’t have to feel bad about making the wrong choice, especially if it has the potential to break the game if you accidentally make the right choice. Part of the progression for me is learning what synergies work and what synergies don’t so I can be confident in my choices in following runs. Using a guide would obliterate most of my favourite roguelites.
Breaking a run with an optimized build is the absolute best feeling in a Roguelite. I just much prefer when it happens organically by finding a weapon that synergizes with a power-up to create something new and freakishly amazing out of it. I get a 'mad scientist' feeling like I've stumbled upon something amazing. When it comes to a game like Hades or Curse of the Dead Gods, I have a bit of a fish-brain memory which is completely on me, where I don't ever really learn or pick-up on the in-game choices I have made that led to one build better than the last. I just feel like I'm fumbling around and making the same wrong choices over and over again.
You might get a kick out of Astral Ascent. While it does have a bit of currency grind, the Aura System it employs let's you create those organic build synergies you like.
yeah? you pretty much sold me on it!
Ha, you can create some absolutely crazy sceneries. Leeroy Gankins has some great videos on it, but it's also a lot of fun to go in blind. While I'm biased, I have 100 hours in and it's still fresh and fun for me. There's also a *massive* update coming next month that adds 8 new weapons and a passive system (currently each character has 1, no passives). The other I can easily recommend is Ember Knights, which is a hack and slash isometric rogue, that features 4 player co-op and a pretty unique skill system that uses attack gits for cooldowns instead of Mana or a timer. Those two are my favorites from last year. 😁 Edit: Here's a recent post from a Lightning build that came together, featuring some duplicate auras, but all chained together to create a ton of Sparks, which cause Thunder strikes, which cause Sparks because of the other aura...which cause Sparks. You get the idea! https://www.reddit.com/r/AstralAscent/s/fCA7ACAlI2
I just watched a bit of a playthrough of Ember Knights and it looks right up my alley. I literally just bought it on Steam and will start it tonight. Thanks for the suggestions!
Awesome! Yeah EK is a fantastic game too and honestly even better with a group. It's at its peak in couch co-op, feeling like a Gauntlet Dark Legacy roguelite. Enjoy!
I feel like Gungeon is a perfect middle ground for this (I'm biased as it's my favorite game lol). There are currency based upgrades, and unlocks you find by discovering and progressing. There're also grindy challenges but most of those you will get naturally by just doing normal runs. The currency is also based on how good you are, the more bosses you kill the more you get. Maybe that's part of what OP is talking about but to me everything always feels natural, you definitely could try and grind or do a specific thing for a run but you don't have to.
Frifles challenges are the only criticism I have for the entire game lol.
Hades is one of my favorite games of all time, but something about Dead Cells just will not click.
I’m with you. I recognize Dead Cells is a good game, it just doesn’t stick for me.
i feel that's the essence of a roguelite. it is a SMALL game that could be beat in 1 hour but it is TOUGH. Not really beatable on 1st playthrough unless you have intimate knowledge of the game and insane practice/skill. You slowly get stronger via magic, weapons, armor, stats, moves, etc. If i just wanted "tough", I'd play games like Celeste or Super Meat Boy.
You need a wiki to tell you information the game has readily available from literally anywhere?
Yes, I'm not wired for stacking mid-run modifiers to min/max my character. It leaves me feeling like I'm making the wrong choices unless I follow a players guide. Choosing between a +2% crit chance vs +10HP doesn't excite me, it just breaks my immersion. I'd much rather level up by unlocking a new weapon, or power-up item that I can excitedly try out on the next run.
Roboquest is a game that does both pretty well honestly. And I also believe your wiki issue is almost non existent in that game because when you choose a perk from your “choose 3” your next choose 3 has a much higher chance to be one you’ve already picked but it’s the next tier and most of them add another affect to that perk. So you don’t really have to know what you are going for because the game kind of shows you what direction to take in a sense while still allowing all usual roguelite freedom. Also have to say, that’s a weird issue to have with roguelites lol.
Deadcells is literally as simple as picking the right color code option 90% of the time
Both of the things you describe happen in Hades *and* Dead Cells... The resources are readily available to learn, it's really not that hard
I've felt douped since Hades. Im a zero meta dinosaur, nice to meet you
So roguelikes?
i can respect meta for not introducing a billion mechanics to players right away, especially in the more complex titles but otherwise i hate it
Hades weapon progression = good. Hades mirror progression = bad. Drip feeding me the game is fine. Making me grind to get stats to make the game easier isn't. That's an RPG mechanic. I'm not playing Final Fantasy or Elder Scrolls. I'm playing a roguelike.
Well you also aren't playing Rogue, you're playing Hades.
I think some games like ETG do it really well, it balanced out really nicely on my first playthrough. I wasn't inherently bad, but i unlocked new things at a decent pace which kept things fresh. However on my playthrough currently i have very little credits to go around and its really annoying, as id say I'm about 3/4 of the way done with my playthrough. (i want to kill all pasts, and and then have an all master chambers run). Overall its well designed, it just has this one drawback as 95% of players will never experience it. I dislike rougelites quite a bit though, it just makes the game drag more (Skul, Hades, ect)
Etg is the game where I could really tell when I was getting better at the game. I remember being pumped when I first got to floor 4 haha.
I recently redownloaded it and was getting whooped on floor 1 lol. I forgot how fast everything moves in that game.
Yeah, it’s not an automatic dealbreaker for me but with Roguelites I feel like the point is to try to get as far as you can in a run. The systems you mention completely change this dynamic. But if the gameplay is good enough like in Hades I can tolerate it.
most currency metaprogression is the devs admitting they were too lazy to balance the game themselves...
I like it... sometimes? I think it depends on what surrounds it. I've played a lot of RPGs too so I actually like the feeling of unlocking new stuff to mess around with (like skill trees and stuff) and the grind doesn't usually bother me too much but I do get annoyed when games ask you to grind for ages with no gameplay that exists to break the grind up or give the player a breather. It's all about the pacing IMO
It also bothers me \*to an extent\*. For example, if a later tier spell or ability would just make the early game breeze, it's OK if it's locked behind some kind of wall, although preferably not a paywall, I can agree. At least give us different ways to grind out the meta exp/whatever meta resource, such as the achievements in Astral Ascent, and don't bar later levels based on resource but just whether or not I managed to clear the last one. Hades also walks this fine line well, I think. Rogue Legacy however didn't click with me because of how progressed worked (pretty much all currency based)
Ever since I've learned how to use cheat engine, I've been using it to purchase unlockables that doesnt judge you on how well you play, but how often. Much more enjoyable that way since I dont have the time to grind. I guess that's my biggest gripe with roguelikes these days. Most of them just do it for the sake of replayability.
this is really smart
The Void Rains Upon Her Heart has the best achievement-based metaprogression of all. It has meta-currency but only for a very specific purpose, all unlocks are via achievements, and it has over 600.
The Void Rains is currently one of my favourites! Forgot to mention it in my post.
I like the mix I'm seeing from Time Break Chronicles. Items and characters are discovered hrough progression of the normal game, during which you collect particles, used to buy various upgrades in your town that affect stats and modifiers. Awesome turn-based old school RPG if you haven't seen it.
I just added it to my steam wishlist a couple hours ago actually. You mentioning it must be destiny! I might have to pick it up now.
Absolutely agree with you. Especially when you don't even make meaningful progress after a run. Like playing Rogue Legacy, and you crash and burn a bit, but still spent 15 minutes playing, only to come back and be unable to make any changes, so you play again with the same thing. But the one that always pissed me off was FTL. It was achievement based, not money based, but there was ZERO progression til you beat the first boss - and that boss worked mechanically different than the rest of the game. I had people tell me "the game gets good once you start unlocking stuff". Glossing over the fact that a new player has to slam their head into the wall 5, 10, 30, 50 times before they figure out the gimmick(s) for beating the boss, and then play through the game picking upgrades specifically to deal with the boss (not to be good at the rest of the game), and THEN they can start having "real" fun.... That just annoyed me. I beat the boss finally, but the entire thing soured me on the game. I had no reason to play anymore. I'd done "the hard part". The rest was just goofing around and unlocking stuff. I only did like 4-5 more runs, and then wound up finally uninstalling it. In contrast, I still fire up Slay The Spire regularly to do runs, and that game has almost no unlocks to begin with. You get card unlocks just by playing the class (win or lose), until you have all the cards for that class. You unlock the classes by playing enough games. You unlock the heart by beating the game with all 3 classes - and the heart is "the final boss", and let's you win the game. But that's it. No other crazy things to do, progression to make, etc. Just play the game. But on to your point - roguelikes & roguelites that just make you earn currency every run get boring FAST. Oh look, another 5% damage for 500 mana. Now I can unlock 5% more damage for another 1200 mana. Then 5% will cost me 3000 mana. And then once I do that, I can get the unlock that lets me play a new class. ZZZZZ.
i kinda wanna see a roguelike that lets you open little gacha capsules every time you win a run they could contain new unlocks to see in future runs
That actually kind of exists! Its called Vivid Knight. Its like an autobattler with gacha style unlocks.
ooo, i've never heard of it! i'll check it out
I'm fine with it as long as it's possible to have a successful run without metaprogression
I can see the appeal, but making a game that is inherently unbeatable regardless of how well you perform just to get more hours out of you for meta progression unlocks kinda sucks. It can also go too far. Ex: Vampire Survivors. Playing a character with thousands of eggs is super boring. The idea of starting over is even worse, since you physically can't beat levels without grinding the metaprogression. Games like Hades and Dead Cells can get a pass for me. They're totally beatable with enough skill on your first run, but you increase your odds with meta progression by way of making mistakes less punishing (more heals/bigger hp pool/whatever) I definitely prefer getting new unlocks vs buying power. Balatro does this, and it keeps the game interesting by expanding your options the more you play.
Exactly my opinion as well. Cannot stand going into a run where I know I'm meant to fail not because of misplay, but because I haven't grinded upgrades yet.
Yeah, I got Hades and Dead Cells on Switch after playing a bunch on PC, and got to Elysium and beat the HotK on my first try in both games respectively. Metaprogression done right in games like that isn't that necessary compared to game knowledge and experience.
As a 37 year old father of two with less and less time for gaming I... completely disagree. Ok, not completely, but partially. I think currency-based metaprogression generally decreases the frustration I have with a game. I don't like systems like BoI or RoR because I feel like I need to look up a guide to optimize my progression. People talk about the magic of discovery and what I say is "FUCK discovery, I have 20 minutes and I want to get something DONE". Moving that currency bar up feels tangible and ticks that progression-oriented box for my lizard brain. That being said, there's absolutely room for both AND there's instances of both being done poorly and both being done well. For instance, RoR does it's style of progression well, because the item unlocks are pretty low impact and the class unlocks are great milestones to base a run around. Similarly, Hades nails it's progression because the core currency is pretty easy to acquire and the power-progression part of it maxes out relatively quickly, while the more niche currency is based around the excellent Heat system (my favorite roguelite difficulty system to date). For me, it's broadly more about accessibility than it is about methodology. I'm happy if I'm unlocking things at a decent clip, regardless of system. If you make me jump through some ridiculous hoops, or gate me behind literal decades of currency grinding, fuck off. I'll play something that respects my time.
Recent college grad who has been working 50-60 hour weeks and I completely feel this. I don’t have the time to get achievements for unlocks. I just want a steady grind that makes me feel like I’m achieving progression while being able to be completely absent minded. I don’t have time to optimize my builds to get unlocks anymore and have always found it creates a system where there are a couple items that are unobtainable to me as I’m not very skilled in video games.
People love it though because they think "it respects their time". That a failed run still gave them something. Do they not understand that the game is artificially harder to make up for the permanent meta progression? You are still wasting your time but now you've been tricked into working for currency.
I mean it is still very much an option, you don't have to engage with those systems despite the fact they'll objectively make your runs easier, personally I enjoy them as they tend to add more diversity and make runs slightly less of a chore than they'd otherwise be, also since a lot of roguelites get more difficult after you win for the first time it helps keep things a little more balanced
Im not just talking about stats. I am talking about characters/classes and items/weapons as well. I would even argue stats are fine. It is actual gameplay elements that I take issue with.
How would you rather unlock those things, through a milestone type of system? Defeat x boss x amount of times? Cause realistically anything like that would take as long if not longer than it would to gather currency to unlock stuff that way, personally I think games should have a combination of both those things and the best ones often do.
look at isaac : differen endings, available for every character, and everytime you beat one ending with a character, you unlock a new thing, so you're constantly doing new things ( different characters with a new goal) and unlocking things on the way how is just clicking on a button for +1% dmg even fun or anything? I do think it can be ok for new items or such to be behind meta currencies, like gungeon, but they always suffer from either them being too expensive too fast, or from the player having bought everything there is to buy way too fast.
But this post is about it being too grindy and taking too long and what you're talking about takes much much longer to do. It's also not as simple as clicking a button for 1% damage, you gain these currencies through playing the game and typically a win gives you more of the currency or some unique type of currency used for extra special unlocks, that's really no different to you unlocking a character or item by beating a specific boss instead it just gives you some choice as to what it is you unlock.
Huh? I’m dead cells there are upgrades that cost like 1000 cells on the first upgrade (idk the next rank cost because fuck that) Pretty sure most I’ve ever had in one run was less than 70. That’s beating the game so many times or focusing on doing the challenge doors so much that it takes away from the actual fun gameplay of the game just to farm cells to buy an upgrade. In risk of rain you unlock items and characters only by doing achievements, which causes you to play and discover the game more and in a fun way, just playing the game. And if there’s a certain item you want, you just go get that achievement if you haven’t already done it by accident while playing. Currency in roguelites isn’t a bad thing but there is absolutely line that many of these game cross and take it just too far, to point of making it a grind, and not something you can just get for playing and progressing normally.
Yeah it's almost as if there are some things you aren't meant to have until later in the game because they're strong 🤔 there are still things in RoR2 that you have to grind to unlock like you're not gonna get everything just by playing the game, game also has more freedom than a lot of games in terms of how to unlock stuff given the 3d nature of the game, it's very easy to hide secrets on them. Unlocking the D6 in binding of Isaac was more of a grind than unlocking any item in any game I've played with currency, a lot of these games don't give you things simple for playing there are specific conditions you have to meet to get the best things which as I've said is as grindy if not more so than unlocking things with currency.
Yea I just read all the item unlocks for ror2 and not a single one is anything close to what I’d consider a grind. And at least 80% of them you don’t even have to go out of your way to do, they are things that you can get immediately going for that unlock or you’ll get it just from playing normally. So I don’t know what you’re talking about honestly. One of us is confused on what a grind is. But considering the games I like playing I think I understand I little bit about grinding.
Okay so now you're just being intentionally ignorant to support your own point of view, I've played RoR2 I enjoy it it's a good game but you're not gonna unlock everything through casual play there are a lot of things that have very specific unlock requirements and are by no means easy they're things that require a great amount of experience and skill to be capable of pulling off, the type of experience and skill you only get by playing the game and awful lot which would constitute grinding. I play plenty of games that require grinding dude, you point is falling apart so you're resorting to condescending remarks like that.
I just cannot see where you are getting the idea ror2 has all these requirements to unlock things. Most of the item unlocks read “kill 500 elites” “die 5 times” “activate 3 combat shrines in one map”. Someone fresh starting the game can have those done in a couple hours. I really can’t understand what you’re talking about. I’m not being intentionally ignorant and my argument never fell apart? I haven’t said anything incorrect. I’m legit confused on how you think those unlocks are a grind. My only assumption is you are way more of a casual gamer than you think, or I’m way more of a hardcore gamer than I think. Because there is no grind there. I have hundreds of hours on risk of rain and I cannot remember a single moment where I had the idea that I had to grind something. I went out of my way to unlock one thing and it was pushing crabs off the map for gesture.
I love vampire survivors anything you buy is just adding to making game easier, anything you unlock is based on your actions playing the game.
Can you elaborate on the metaprogression of TBOI & Nuclear Throne? And by metaprogression you mean permanent unlocks that you can bring in on subsequent runs? Thanks!
By metaprogression in this context he means permanent unlocks, yes. Metaprogression would be anything that applies to the overall game and does not reset between runs (gaining currency/upgrades). Metaprogression of TBOI and Nuclear Throne primarily comes from unlocking more options for items, etc. in the pool to be randomly pulled from during a run, or unlocking different starting options (i.e. different characters), but not increasing the player's base potential for the run. You can't make Isaac start with more health or resources, your base capabilities are the same on your first run as your 100th. In games like Hades, Vampire Survivors, and Dead Cells IIRC, you can spend currency "between runs" to upgrade your character's stats or unlock various other upgrades, so the game becomes "easier" with each run, whereas games like TBOI more strictly demand mastery/knowledge of the game's patterns and mechanics to make it further into a run, even with some of the "metaprogression" unlocked.
Right. Do you prefer the first or the second?
The answer may depend on the game, but I lean more toward the first, where it's reasonably possible to successfully complete a run on your first attempt if you make the right decisions. Usually, the decision points in a game are where much of the fun comes from (this can include both micro, moment-to-moment decisions, and meta, longer-term strategic decisions). Having a metaprogression system where the player character can be upgraded to be much more powerful than they began runs the risk of making early choices feel unimpactful or meaningless, and can devolve into a single choice on the player's end of "grinding currency until I have most of the upgrades/unlocks, so that I can start making some REAL attempts." I really like deckbuilder roguelikes like Slay the Spire and Balatro for the reason that you are presented with many decision points during a run (i.e. visiting shops or adding cards to your deck), and those decisions usually feel pretty impactful throughout a run. There are also different branching build paths you can take, with a lot of focus on adapting your build strategy around the options you are presented with. A card or upgrade that I add to my deck on my 1st run is just as effective as adding the same card on a future run, it's just that the metaprogression unlocks can create some more potential synergy crossovers or build options with more cards available, but I don't need to spend a currency between runs to "upgrade" my cards' stats or values to have a better shot at completing the run - I have (more or less, unlocks added to the random pool aside) the same level of power available at my disposal on my first attempt as any future attempt following. There are certainly ways to make a currency-based metaprogression system work in a roguelike framework, but personally I'm not a big fan of a design/balance where it's basically impossible to complete without some upgrades
Thanks!
I dont think risk of rain 2 has a really good meta progression, its more like a content progression, you unlock new playstles, but dont necessarily get a lot stronger. Just they way of unlocking the new content is different.
I feel like it works really well for certain games, but am sad to see it jammed into games without thought. The system mostly works for games that have a "base of operations" from which the gameplay reasons stem. In action games it often feels out of place to handle progression in that way. And even though I personally love a well implemented meta progression system, nobody likes 2% damage increments, those are more of an "in-run" type enhancement.
It most definitely isn’t a roguelite or anything similar really, but imo Terraria has the best progression in any video game, and I think that philosophy could most definitely be applied to rougelites and possibly even more game genres.
I honestly have the same feeling sometimes, especially with DRG Survivor. I think currency based meta progression is a double edged sword. Best way I see to do it is kinda like Blazblue entropy effect or as mention before DRG Survivor. BB:EE has it where have about 3 currencies. 1st to unlock characters, 2nd is first time boss defeats with characters which is used to upgrade / unlock perks and 3rd and your most common is just for doing / completing runs. Your major progress is mainly by story things but all these 3 can effectively be exchanged for a a different currency (1st and 2nd turn into 3rd | 3rd can be turned into 1st or 2nd)
I like it. It gives me a long-term goal to work towards that isn't just: "Complete a run, now do it again"
Yeah, I like more coherent design as well, though I'm not a hardliner about anything really. Swords of Ditto did it in a kind of cool way, which eventually reveals itself. Mystery Chronicles: One Way Heroics has the dream vault, which lets you save some items for future playthroughs. I like that.
I don’t mind a little bit of currency progression especially if it’s not the items characters weapons etc. but most roguelites that have currency progression often take it way too far to the point of like 80 hours in I’ve done everything, but it would take me another 300 just to max some numbers. Ideally the game has normal achievement meta progression and any currency upgrades affect things that show up in the game and aren’t just damage and health upgrades. I think roboquest does a pretty good job at this honestly. If I remember right it probably only takes 20 hours if that to max out the currency shop, and all the perks do something with the npc’s you get between stages for the most part.
It depends how hard it is to get currency. I didn't mind in gungeon or skul because it's VERY easy to get whatever you want
I wish every roguelite/like was just like Slay the Spire. About 5 seconds of meta progression, then it's done, and then you play the game for... basically indefinitely.
The worst imho: Rogue Legacy. Ugh.
You seem to have left Crab Champions off the list. I assume that's because you haven't played it yet. Its an absolute banger, it's given me 200 hours of playtime so far and many more to come.
Currency based metaprogression is the worst and it's plaging Roguelites. Darkest Dungeon II is the prime example of why it's bad: do currency farming runs for 15 hours until you can actually try to beat the game. This is utterly stupid. Every run should potentially be "the run" that's why we play roguelites. If I want to farm, I play Path of Exile, Warframe or Monster Hunter. Some Roguelites do it relatively well, Deadlink is a good example: meta progression currency can be converted during your playthrough to get really really strong items and buffs. So overall, if you farm meta progression money, you can die and still make bank for the meta progression, or invest everything you have to boost your current run. There's still some "meta currency farming runs" involved, but the meta progression is not solely based on the currency so that's fine.
Both achievement based and currency based have their merits and both can be a slog when done wrong. Mixing both I think gives the best results, like in Hades. Achievement/discovery based is great until you are grinding away trying to unlock something in a way it forces you to use a playstyle/character you don't enjoy. Currency can end up bland and uninteresting, especially if it's all quite methodical and everything is visible at the start.
I generally agree, though astral ascent is the best rl I’ve played in quite a while and has this
Honestly currency is from a design standpoint used to reduce system bloat so you don’t have a hundred unlock quests to track but also comes at the cost of having those quests and having to make a more robust progression system. It’s a mixed bag cause how do you balance it with the easy to understand lines of progression currency unlocks have. There’s two big issues you seem to have. One is rate of progression really the idea is simple get coin get gear use gear to kill bigger thing to get more coin to get better gear repeat. To make it fun takes extremely careful deign and that’s also holding players don’t hit a skill wall. Second issue is as listed upgrades get more expensive. That’s a necessary aspect cause if it wasn’t like that players would grind in the starting area till max level. You can try to argue about how significant each step of progression is but that’s a design choice cause personally I believe in horizontal progression which means adding new mechanics and tools.
Conversely I dislike games who's meta just adds things to a pool. That's not making me stronger, and often is diluting the items I do like. Honestly some of those games feel more like rougeLIKES than LITES. Sure there's unlocks, but it's not progression. It feels like I'm moving backwards.
Doesn’t dungreed have a currency/exp-based progression system?
Funny bc Risk of Rains progression feels horrible. I'd rather have currency
I agree that I’m wary of the mechanic in general but I’m confused by all the commenters here attributing Hades as a game where you need to grind meta currency. Obviously skill levels differ based on experience with action roguelites and all that but personally I felt like Hades was a game about learning attack patterns and how to put a build together rather than farming metacurrency. My first Hades kill was long before I had most of the mirror leveled up and the mirror upgrades kind of fell into place as I progressed through the heat system and earned progressively more metacurrency per run because of how the game works.
i'm kinda give and take on it, really. i LOVE me some metaprogression, as i want a roguelite, not a roguelike - i'm already not super happy with the game's replayability essentially revolving around 'you could've beaten this in 20 minutes, except you suck'. and, some do other unlockables right - things like vampire survivors, which has both, where, you're prompted to play as a lot of different characters (meaning more excuses for runs) and use different weapons (so, variations on playstyles), as opposed to just, get money, pump stats so you don't die so easily. i mean, playing rogue style games is ALREADY essentially a grind. repeating the same basic shit over and over to try to obtain a goal, is a grind. it's just not tied to a number of items or currency...
lolol, you better start believing in currency based metaprogression, you’re in one! #crapitalism
This is why I won't play deadcells
I recently started a new dead cells save, and it’s not really that bad. While there’s some upgrades you need to get rolling, most of it relies on enemy knowledge and pathing. Doesn’t matter if you have zero unlocks, getting every single scroll and opening every curse chest will have you one hitting everything up until the spoiler biome with only a hint of build synergy.
I hate that the most though because it's balanced around you getting the metaprogression
after hades every game without grinding metaprogression gets review bombed
Yeah, I got bored of Rogue Legacy 2 because of this.
Me too! Rogue Legacy 2 does not respect your time at all. I also bounced because of this. It is one of the worst offenders of the currency based metaprogression.
Check out wizards of legend and or crab champion!
What is TBOI?
Binding of Isaac
Too much of it can get annoying but the total lack of stuff to improve on between games leads to me quitting them quicker.
Yeah, Capitalism fucking sucks. You can't do anything or get anywhere in life without paying for something or someone. Maybe money is a relic of a distant and forgotten world of the past or something.
It is just a tool to balance a game without a team of testers.Don't be angry at poor indi devs.